


A Better Luthor-Danvers

by happyle



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/F, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Identity Reveal, Kid Fic, Let’s give Lena Luthor all the love she deserves, Sweet Leo, Time Travel, Vigorous Lori
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyle/pseuds/happyle
Summary: Lori (hybrid,18-year-old) and Leo (adopted, 21-year-old) are running a trial of a time machine in Lena’s personal lab when an alien attacks. During the fight, three of them accidentally stumble into the time machine and travel back to 2017, who will two kids go to ask for help?Picking up after S03E03, an attempt to fix the forced Lena×James mess, and let’s get Sanvers married!(And there is a scientific explanation for supercorp in chapter 2, enjoy!)
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 72
Kudos: 289





	1. everyone freaks out

Kara Danvers is sitting behind her desk in CATCO, working on last week’s alien attack article with some Supergirl quotes. Kara hums and thinks, Dose quoting herself count as undermining journalist’s integrity? The corner of her mouth twitches a little. Super Hearing Lena says a _Thank you_ to her assistance, Eve Teschmacher, for handing her some documents, Kara looks into Lena’s office, seeing that Lena is wearing a navy silk blouse and a black slit skirt that shows her leg perfectly, and her hair is tied into a tight bun. Lena Luthor is attractive as always.

 _I know Ms.Grant is the Queen of Media who needs to keep a tap on everything but does she have to make her office door glass? It’s so distracting!_ (but we all know what really distracting is Lena Luthor, not the poor door.) Kara growls silently, goes back to typing.

Lena is sitting on the couch, going through some documents of CATCO. Sunray shines into the office, tiny visible dust dancing in the beam of sunlight, Lena closes her eye and sighs in relaxation, sinking in the warmth of sunlight. Having Sam taking over for her at L-Corp as her CFO, her load of work is decreased, which makes her have more time to learn ins and outs of Catco and see one certain blonde reporter more frequently. She opens her eyes and glances out of her office, searching for Kara Danvers subconsciously, finding Kara is typing fiercely on her keyboard with brows knitted, who is wearing a scarlet shirt and a black khaki, with hair swept back in a ponytail, Lena finds the sight… cute. Noticing herself’s heartbeat fastening a little, she looks away immediately and stares at multiple televisions on the wall at her right side, but not a single word is heard.

 _Focus on your work, Luthor! You have two multibillions companies to run, now is not the time to drool over your best friend! Besides she is still getting over her leaving boyfriend,_ Lena chides herself.

_THUMP!_

Startled by a loud sound from the balcony stretching outside her office, Lena turns her head abruptly to the direction of the sound, almost wrenches her neck. She sees a blonde girl wearing an MIT hoodie and a pair of jeans, Lena stuns, _another assassination attempt? Again?_ is the first thought that crosses her mind.

“Mom!” The girl brightens up at the sight of Lena, “Thank god you are here too!”

 _What… Mom? This opening line is the first._ Lena puts documents down on the couch, standing up vigilantly with her body tightening, she says, “What do you want?”

The girl throws her hands in the air to show Lena that she doesn’t carry any weapon, “Mom, calm down please, I am not gonna hurt you.”

“Why do you keep calling me that!” Lena snaps.

“Let me explai—”

Before the girl finishes her sentence, Kara suddenly appears at the door and shouts, “Lena! Are you okay?” (Kara ran to the office at a slightly inhuman speed as soon as she heard Lena’s frightening words and racing heartbeat.) Kara rushes in front of Lena, shielding Lena protectively, “Who are you?” frowning at the girl.

“Jeju!” the girl cries out.

Kara freezes, “Ho… how do you know Krytonese?”

“Let me explai—”

“Kara!” James bursts in, “What happened?” facing the girl, “Who are you?”

“Argh! Uncle James!” the girl whines, “Is there anyone else is gonna interrupt me? Can you guys let me explain first, please?”

“Wait, Krytonese? Kara, how do you know Krytonese?” Lena asks confusedly, crinkling her forehead.

Kara exchanges a FUCK ME look with James, “Uh…… I…”

“Ms. Luthor, I think we'd better focus on the threat now.” James tries to change the topic.

“What?” the girl calls out, “Mom you don’t know Jeju is Supergirl yet? What year is it?”

“Uh… 2017?” Kara answers.

The girl starts to pace back and forth, “This is bad, so bad.”

The room goes quiet for five seconds. Lena is the one who breaks the silence first, “Kara, are you… Supergirl?” she asks hesitantly.

Kara turns to face Lena and puts one hand on Lena’s forearm, “Yes, I am. Can we talk about this later, and deal with this first?” gesturing to the anxious girl.

“Okay.”

“Thank you,” Kara says. Facing the girl again, “Can you explain to us why do you seem to know everyone and why do you call me Jeju, and call Lena mo—” suddenly, a realization hits like a hammer. Kara scrutinizes the girl’s face, finding that the girl’s blonde hair reflecting a familiar luster in the sunlight, the frame of her face is similar to her own and the girl is as tall as her, but he r eyes are emerald identical to Lena’s. Starting to fidget, she murmurs, “Oh.”

Seeing Kara is useless now, the girl clams herself and walks into the office, “Everyone please sit down, allow me to explain,” she says with both palms up.

Kara nods to Lena and James wordlessly, three of them take one side’s couch, the girl takes the other. “My name is Lori Luthor-Danvers, and I am from the future,” Lori pauses to give three people sitting across from her some time to process this information.

Lena flinches at the last name, something is stirring in her chest right now, she knows the girl is telling the truth with her Luthor skill, let alone she notices all resemblances Lori bears to her and Kara, but the appearance of Lori implies she will marry Kara Danvers who is Supergirl, and have a kid in the future? _This is insane._

James is astonished, “Who? How?”

“I am the daughter of Kara Luthor-Danvers and Lena Luthor-Danvers,” Lori says proudly, “Mom researched on genetical engineering, so I was sophisticatedly cloned by fragmenting and manipulating DNA of my moms’.”

James turns to face Kara and Lena, “You two will get married in the future? You’re not even dating now! And time travel? You can’t believe this girl.”

Lena confirms, “I do believe her.”

“James, I believe her too. I mean, look at her! She looks exactly like me and Lena. She knows my identity, and she flew in from outside the balcony, so apparently, she has some powers as I do.” Kara argues.

“Wait, Kara, are even you gay?” James asks confusedly.

“I… I could be?”

 _One score for me,_ Lena thinks, but composes herself quickly. “Mrs. Olsen, presuming other people’s sexual orientation is rude, I expected better from you.” Lena chastises in her CEO tone.

Lori chimes in, “Yes, heteronormativity is ridiculous.”

Lena tilts her head to Lori, raising one eyebrow, she praises, _Attagirl._

James apologizes quickly, “Kara, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“James, it’s okay.” Kara waves her hand, “Let’s just focus on Lori.” The way she says Lori’s name is so natural, looking at Lori again, “Why do you come here?”

Lori puffs out a breath, “Oh, this is a long story. And—” looking outside the office with hesitancy.

Lena comprehends Lori’s hesitation, walks to Eve’s desk and says, “Eve, we are having an important meeting now, please make sure no one would come to interrupt us.”

“Yes, Ms. Luthor.” Eve replies in her shrill voice, “Can I get you anything else?”

Lori flings beside Lena, “Yes! One black coffee for Ms. Luthor, two lattes with double caff, double foam with caramel and mocha for me and Ms. Danvers, one soy latte for Mrs. Olsen, thank you!” 

Eve looks at Lena questioningly, “Uh… Ms. Luthor?”

Lena shakes her head, “Yes, Eve, please.”

“Okay, Ms. Luthor, be right back.”

Lena closes the office door and walks back to the couch, sits down and leans back to get herself comfortable, “So, where were we?”

_OCTOBER 26TH, 2041, LENA LUTHOR’S PERSONAL LAB, NATIONAL CITY_

Today is just another normal day for Lori Luthor-Danvers, who is standing beside a round platform with a matter transformation setting portal above, she is typing commands at her tablet. Building a time machine? Just some science stuff at weekends, totally normal for Lori.

Leo stands behind a screen wall not far away, observing all the data, “I hope this optimized algorithm would actually work.”

Lori echos blankly, “Hmm, I guess we will find out soon.” After two seconds, Lori looks away from her tablet, looking at her brother, “But again, Leo, you don’t have to be stuck with me here. It’s the weekend, you can go out to enjoy yourself, or spend time with moms.”

“Hey, I am enjoying myself. I’ve learned a lot from this project, and I like to be your muscle here,” Leo gives Lori an assuring smile, “Besides, I don’t want to a third wheel at moms’ weekly Saturday night date, you know how touchy they can be. Can you believe they got married for twenty years and are still disgustingly sweet?”

“Argh! Don’t remind me that. Walking into their make out session is my life-long trauma.” Lori laments.

“Yeah, I also can’t forget that day when we went home from school, found Jeju lifted mom—”

“Stop!” Lori covers her ears with her hands.

Leo chuckles, “And I want to help my little sister to get the girl she likes.”

Lori blushes profoundly, “Becca is just a friend from college! Her birthday is coming, she is obsessed with an old movie named Portrait of a Lady on Fire recently and can’t stop talking about it. I just wanna surprise her by taking her back to the 1760s in Paris to have a dinner! That’s all.”

“Uh, building A time machine as a birthday gift? You Luthor-Danvers women.” Leo shakes his head.

Lori flings a pen at Leo’s chest.

“Ouch! It hurts!” Leo feigns pain.

Lori pouts, “Oh, what are you gonna do? Tell moms I bullied you, big brother?”

Leo laughs fondly at Lori’s remark. Lori is always vigorous and enthusiastic, maybe a little childish sometimes, but she would do anything for people she loves. Even though Lori is a genius who studies two majors (theoretical physics and biological engineering) at M.I.T at the age of eighteen, people don’t find her unaccessible and draw to her naturally. With her irresistible charm, Lori made a lot of friends while she was growing up. As a hybrid clone, Lori also inherits the power of Krypton, Jeju taught her how to control powers when her superpowers started to kick in, and Jeju also trains her at D.E.O from time to time. Lori hasn’t figured out which path she wants to go yet, but their moms are patient enough to give her as much time as she needs to consider it.

“Ready to begin the trail?” Leo asks.

“Yep! Let’s fire it up!” Lori’s lower lip pops out at ‘p’, typing at her tablet, “Let me activate it with a random time and space.” 

_Bang!_ An alien suddenly appears the lab entrance, door splashed into the ground.

Both of them are frightened by the huge bang, turning their heads simultaneously to the intruder.

Leo gulps, “A parademon of Darkseid? I thought they were all sent home by Justice League.”

The parademon lets out a roar, suddenly launches to them. “Watch out!” Lori shouts, drops her tablet, pushes Leo aside instinctively.

Leo falls to the ground on his back, groans in pain.

The parademon tucks Lori from her waist, smashing her forward. They are stopped by the wall in the front, the impact causes a huge crack on the wall behind Lori’s body. The parademon’s shoulder presses against Lori’s abdomen, trapping her firmly. “Oh god, it shouldn’t be this strong!” Lori clenches her jaw, puts her hands on the parademon’s shoulders, trying to push it away from her. Gritting her teeth, Lori manages to create a gap between them, then she kicks hardly at the parademon’s chest. The parademon is kicked up in the air, falls backward, landing on the edge of the platform. Lori flies to The parademon, stride above its chest, “Entering other people’s house without knocking is rude!”, punching it on the head repeatedly. The parademon is infuriated by Lori’s humiliation, it rolls sideways violently to pin Lori on the ground, grabbing Lori’s neck with one hand, growls directly at Lori’s face. Lori’s both hands press against the parademon’s head, resisting and groaning. By the change of position, their are both on the platform now.

Seeing Lori’s dilemma, Leo struggles to stand up, “Lori!” He grabs a computer screen nearby and smashes it down on the parademon’s back. The computer screen is cracked into two pieces, but no injury is done on the parademon. The parademon doesn't seem to care about Leo at all, simply sweeps Leo away by its wing without looking back. Leo falls on his back again with one elbow touching Lori’s tablet lying on the ground.

_THE SOUND OF MACHINE RUNNING_

A purple beam shoots down from the portal above the platform. “NO, NO, NO, NOOOO!”, Leo panics, runs towards Lori.

Just when Leo steps on the platform, the parademon disappears, then Lori disappears. Realizing what happened, Leo murmurs a _shoot_ , disappears too.

The purple light goes out.

_LENA LUTHOR’S OFFICE, CATCO_

“After I landed, I found myself on an apartment building’s roof, I searched Jeju’s heartbeat with my superhearing and located her at CATCO, so I flew directly here. This is the story of how I ended up in here.” Lori takes a sip of her excessively sweet latte, looking at her two moms, “Jeju, I need your help with catching the alien, and mom, I need your help with sending my current time and location coordinates to the future you, so you… the future you can open a portal accurately to get me and my brother back.”

“An alien at large?” James asks.

“A brother?” Kara asks.

“A time machine?” Lena asks. Three of them speak at the same time.

Lori’s eyes flit over three people’s faces successively, doesn’t know which question to answer first.

“Yeah, yeah, the alien at large,” Kara waves her one hand, “How can we track it?”

“We need to contact Aunt Alex, we need DEO’s help.” Lori answers.

“What’s DEO?” Lena asks, normally, she wouldn’t be the one who is the most perplexed in a room full of people.

Lori purses her lips, “Jeju, really?”

James tries to save Kara’s ass again, says, “ DEO is the department of extra normal operations, a secret government facility monitors extraterrestrial presence.”

“So… Alex is not an FBI, but a secret agent of a secret organization? That explains her badass swagger.”

“Jeju, seriously, you need to fix this.” Lori deadpans. “By the way, mom, Aunt Alex did a much better job at her cover than Jeju, how can you be fooled by a pair of glasses? You are a genius who cured… or will cure cancer.”

 _Maybe I am a fool when it comes to Kara Danvers_ , Lena thinks.

Kara ducks her head, fidgeting her glasses in the exact way when she is embarrassed, “I will call Alex now, to fill her in,” she pauses, “No, we better go to DEO to explain the situation in person.” Then she stands up, ready to leave.

“Jeju, wait!” Lori extends one arm, “We need to wait.”

“For what?”

“My brother,” Lori explains, “ I don’t know where he landed, but I think he would go to L-Corp to look for mom first, since mom is here at CATCO, he would come to CATCO eventually.”

_AT THE SAME TIME, GROUND FLOOR, L-CORP_

“Please! I need to see Ms. Luthor now, it’s very urgent!” Leo pleads.

The guard shakes his head, “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give you access when you don’t have an appointment.”

“I promise Ms. Luthor knows me, Please!”

“If Ms. Luthor does know you, you can call her to ask for clearance.” The guard shrugs, he dealt with quite a few reporters who claim they know Ms. Luthor only to try to get a quote, It’s so unoriginal. Can they come up with a new excuse? He takes it as a challenge.

“Argh!” Leo whines frustratedly, tilting his head back. Just at this time, he sees Jess is walking towards the entrance at his peripheral sight. “Jess!”, he exclaims surprisingly, running towards her.

Jess stops at someone calling her name, looks around, finding a man about 6’2’’ tall with black short hair running toward her.

When Leo stops in front of her, Jess looks at Leo up and down before saying, “I’m sorry, but do I know you?”

“Oh no, not now, but you will,” sensing Jess’s confusion, Leo adds promptly, “I mean, uh… I am an intern of Kara Lu—Danvers, she mentioned you to me several times,” laughing embarrassedly, “Anyway, I have an important message for Ms. Luthor about… CATCO, it’s very urgent, can you send me up, please?”

Jess is a very cautious and loyal assistant, she would never leak any information about Ms. Luthor to anyone, but this man, somehow, gives her a feeling of familiarity, she feels secure in her guts. “Ms. Luthor is not at L-Corp, she is at CATCO now”, she finds herself saying.

“Thank you, Jess!” The man runs towards the entrance, turning around to wave her a goodbye at halfway.

 _Weird_ , Jess thinks.

_LENA LUTHOR’S OFFICE, CATCO_

“Mom, Jeju, I have to say, it’s really exciting to see the younger version of you and have an opportunity to hang out with you,” Lori says delightfully, crinkling her nose, “and it’s nice to see you two less… touchier, you two are impossible back home,”

“Oh… kay,” James stands up, “I’m gonna go back to work now.” Then he walks out.

Kara and Lena both blush, turn their heads in different direction simultaneously.

“It’s not like you told us how you got together like in How I Met Your Mother, but how is it possible that you are not dating yet?” Lori asks.

Kara fidgets, “Uh… I am still getting over the last relationship.”

“Mon-el? That douchebag? I really don’t understand what you saw in him.”

“Lori, you can’t tell people how to feel,” Lena reprimands softly, “No matter how wonderful or how terrible that person is, a relationship is a relationship, separating from people you once loved hurts.”

“Jeju, I am sorry! it’s so inappropriate of me to say things like that, I am so sorry.” Lori apologizes sincerely.

“It’s okay, Lori,” Kara smiles weakly, “I guess I just need some time to move on.”

In order to ease tension in the room, Lena says, “I see you are wearing an MIT hoodie, you go to MIT?”

“Yes! To follow your step, I major in theoretical physics and biological engineering.”

Shocked at Lori’s answer, Lori looks rather young to her, “How old are you?” Kara asks with eyes wide open.

“Eighteen, I’m pretty much a genius.” Lori lifts her chin with a smug smile.

“Not humble at all,” Lena says, “I wonder where did you get that from.”

Kara laughs at Lena’s comment fondly, turns to look at Lena who turns to look at her too. Their gaze meets in the air, both of them hold it a little too long to be friendly platonic.

 _They are eye fucking again!_ Lori quivers.

Lena drags her eyes away, looking at Lori, “How about your brother? Is he hybrid too?”

“No, he is a total human. You adopted him when he was five, Jeju saved him from a fire that killed his parents. And he is three years older than me.”

“Oh,” Lena whispers, tendrils of insecurity gnaws in her chest, “Is he happy with me, the future me? Are you happy?”

Lori knows her mom is doubting herself now. Adopted by the Luthor at the age of four, growing upin the somber Luthor mansion, Lena hardly felt been loved. Lex had a weird possession of her, Lillian barely showed affection to her, Lionel didn’t seem to care about her at all, what the worst is that she was betrayed by them, by her family who should’ve loved and cherished her for her existence in this world, who should’ve supported and protected her. Lena is traumatized by her mad family who manipulated her and tried to assassinate her. She is so afraid to let people in, because the people who hurt you almost is the people who you love the most. Lori knows her mom is a mush inside, her mom is afraid that she would pass the Luthor curse down to them.

Lori moves herself to sit beside Lena, holds Lena’s hand, brushing her thumb over Lena’s knuckles, trying to comfort her mom, “Mom, we are happy, actually, I think I’m the happiest kid in the world. You and Jeju are the best parents in the world, l love you so much.”

Normally, Lena is not a tactile person, but the warmth she feels from Lori’s touch seems to deliver directly to her heart from their join hands, they stay like this in silence for a while. Watching the scene, Kara remembers the feeling of red sun touching her skin in Krypton, it feels like home, her heart melts. (Kryptonite could pierce through the girl of steel’s heart, but it would never strike her like this scene.)

“Sir! Sir! You can’t go inside!” Eve’s voice passes through the glass door.

“I need to speak to Ms. Luthor, please let me through.” Leo’s anxious voice resounds.

Hearing the disturbance, Lori looks outside, “Leo!” She runs to Leo, crashing her brother into a tight hug, “Are you hurt?” she asks apprehensively.

“Wow, easy here, I am okay,” Leo squirms uncomfortably at Lori’s impact, “Are you hurt?”

Lori lets Leo go, steps back slightly, “Not really, what took you so long to get here?”

Before Leo can answer, Lena walks beside them, “Eve, it’s okay, he is my guest, you can go back to work now.”

“Yes, Ms. Luthor.”

“Mo— Ms. Luthor!” Leo beams at Lena.

Lena chuckles at Leo’s change of address, gesturing to the office, “Let’s talk inside.” 

Once they step inside the office, “Jeju!” Leo almost weeps at the sight of Kara.

Kara finds it bizarre that a man around her age calls her Jeju, “Hi, Leo,” she responds bashfully.

Leo looks at Lori and asks, “You’ve told them everything?”

“Yep,” Lori answers, “But they are not dating yet.”

Leo is taken aback, “What? This is ridiculous.”

“You tell me.”

 _Rao! Why they keep saying that._ Kara thinks.

 _I wanna murder those two right now._ Lena thinks.

Lori is oblivious to the homicidal intent in her two moms’ eyes, “Anyway, back to my previous question, what took you so long?”

“I am a normal human, I can’t fly. I landed at an alley where I can see the L-corp building, so I ran to L-corp ON FOOT. And I found out we are in 2017 on my way there, I freaked out a little.” Leo says.

Kara chimes in, “Believe me, we all did.”

All of them laugh together at Kara’s remark.

After the laughter dies down, Lori asks, “What now?”

“Lori, you come with me to DEO,” Kara arranges in her Supergirl mode, “Leo you stay with your mo— Lena,” Kara wavers at the word ‘mom’, saying it feels awkward, “Lena, I will call you when we are done, is it okay for you?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Lena says impassively.

 _Damn._ Looking at Lena, Kara asks gingerly, “Lena, can I talk to you privately?”

“Sure.” Two women walk to one end of the office.

“Can we talk about the Supergirl thing later?” plea revolving in Kara’s eyes.

Although Lena still doesn’t know how to feel about the concealment of Supergirl’s identity, she finds it hard to say no to Kara, “Okay.”

Kara smiles, “Thank you.”

Eavesdropping her two moms’ formal conversation, Lori finds she would rather watch her two moms making out than watch them acting awkward around each other (not really though), so she decides to rescue her Jeju from this predicament, “Jeju, let’s go now, we have one alien to catch.”

Giving Lena one more smile, Kara says, “See you later.”

“See you later.”

Seeing Lori walks towards the balcony, “Where are you going?” Kara asks confusingly.

“DEO?”

Realizing Lori prepares to fly to DEO, Kara dismisses, “No, we use the elevator, like a human.” 


	2. we will happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a total science trash, I know every word of my time travel research separately, but I can’t understand them arranged together as a sentence.

Lena watches Kara and Lori walking out, her gaze locks on Kara’s receding silhouette, there are so many emotions stirring in her head right now, her imaginary boxes are overloaded, leaving her standing there in a daze. Remembering Leo is still in the office suddenly, Lena reboots herself, turns to look at Leo, but finds he is staring at her.

“What’s wrong?” Lena asks.

“Nothing, it’s just you look different,” Leo says.

“Younger?”

“Yeah…” Leo chuckles, “But also… lonelier?”

“Oh? Loneliness is visually observable?”

“Wow, scientist mode mom,” Leo gasps exaggeratively, “It’s just a feeling,” he adds with a shrug.

Lena hums playfully, “Feelings are not scientific basis, just sayin’.”

“Mom, you know you are only three years older than me right now, still trying to take me to school?” Leo jokes.

“What can I say, keep learning.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

Lena and Leo grin at each other, previous awkwardness is swept away by their banter. Lena looks into Leo’s brown eyes, she finds they are full of tenderness. Even Leo is much higher and stronger than her, she doesn’t find Leo intimidating, but secure.

Leo looks around, finding the drink bar is behind the couch, “I’m gonna go get a cup of water.”

Seeing Leo moves in leisure, Lena says, “Aren’t you worried?”

“About what?” Leo asks while drinking water.

“This,” Lena waves her one arm, “The time travel, the alien.”

“Not really,” Leo puts the glass down, “Jeju and Aunt Alex will deal with the alien, the future you and Jeju must’ve received an alarm of the lab invasion, they’d rush to the lab to see what happened. Plus, you are here too, you can figure out a way to contact the future you to get us back. So I have nothing to worry about.”

The way Leo says these words is as ordinary as the way one person says what he would have for lunch, it deliveries trust and certainty, it clenches Lena’s heart a little. Boxing her feeling inside her mental box, Lena says, “How can I help with the contact the future me part?”

“Maybe use tachyons or other space-shredding particles to tear a tiny crack in time-space to send a message? I don’t know, this is not my major.” Leo says.

“What’s your major?”

“Mechanical Engineering.”

“You go to MIT too?”

“Nah, I study at Caltech,” Leo pauses, “I am not as intellectual as Lori, so I have to study diligently to catch up with her.”

Lena goes silent, she knows the sentiment behind Leo’s answer, she once was the little sister who wanted to live up to her brother, so she studied so hard at MIT to prove she is worthy of the Luthor name. But now, she understands that she has nothing to prove to the Luthors, she is her own person, she can live her life in her own way. “Leo, you don’t need to prove yourself to anyone,” so she says.

Leo smiles softly, “Mom, I know, you’ve made sure I know this.” In order to lighten the mood, “Mom, I’ve consumed a lot of energy by running back and forth between L-Corp and CATCO, I’m starving right now, how about we go out for lunch?” Leo says with putting both hands on his belly, face grimacing.

Lena laughs at Leo’s childish behavior, “Okay, I guess it’s my treat then.”

“Mom, don’t be so petty, you are a billionaire!” Leo says while walking out of the office, he opens the door and holds it, “Come on,” gesturing Lena to follow.

Lena complies, “What do you want for lunch?”

“I don’t know, how about some ice cream first?”

“Ice cream?”

“Yes, I wanna know what ice cream tastes like twenty years ago.”

“I guess they taste the same as the future.”

“Guess is not scientific basis.” Leo deadpans.

Lena bursts out today’s brightest laughter.

_DEO_

This morning is abnormal for DEO, too quiet, no general alert, no alien emergency, nothing. Alex is sitting on a chair beside the central console with Maggie sitting on her right and Winn sitting on her left, Winn is typing at his keyboard, updating his monitoring system, Alex and Maggie both are staring at their phones with their eyebrows frowning.

Maggie hums, “Hmm, nope,” tapping away on the phone in her hand.

Three seconds later, “This is worse!” Alex says.

Winn glances at them, “Are you messaging to each other?”

“Maggie has a terrible taste at wedding dresses,” Alex holds her phone in front of Winn’s face, “Look!”

“Hey! You are not better than me.” Maggie shows her phone screen to Winn too. Both women glare at Winn, wanting him to make a verdict.

Winn raises both hands, sliding away from them, “I’m not gonna get involved in your argument again.”

“Alex!”

Hearing Kara’s voice, Alex signs, she knows this tone that means something happened. Alex looks in the direction of Kara’s voice, seeing Kara striding towards her with a blonde girl following half a step behind. Alex and Maggie both stand up, walking toward them, four of them meet at the edge of the central console.

“Kara, is everything okay?” Alex asks.

“Please don't freak out at what i’m gonna tell you,” Kara says in her most comforting tone.

“Kara, you know this is the exact sentence to make people freak out,” Maggie says.

Eavesdropping the conversation, Winn slides towards them on his chair, expecting.

Kara puffs out a breath, gesturing to Lori, “This is my future daughter, Lori.” 

“Your WHAT?” Alex, Maggie, Winn shout at the same time, causing all agents on the floor to look at them.

“Shhh, voice down!” Kara hisses, “I said no freaking out.” 

“Who?” Alex asks.

“How?” Winn asks.

“With whom?" Maggie asks.

They look at Lori in shock. 

It's Kara’s turn to be uncertain about which question to answer first.

Seeing her Jeju is useless again, Lori steps in, “Hi, Aunt Alex, Maggs, Uncle Winn,” Lori beckons them, “My name is Lori Luthor-Danvers, a Darkseid’s parademon launched an attack while my brother and I were running a trail of a time machine, we were accidentally transmitted here. So we need your help to catch the parademon.”

“Luthor?” Alex and Maggie exclaim simultaneously.

“Uuuh... Whi... which one?” Winn asks drawlingly.

Kara groans, “Lena, Of course! Look, l will explain this part later, can you please focus on finding the alien now?”

Alex starts, “But how—“

“Alex,” J’onn J’onzz cuts in, walking towards them, “What’s happening?”

“GP J’onn!” Lori greets excitedly, making J’onn looks at Lori questioningly. “You can read my mind now, you have my consent,” she adds with a grin.

J’onn stares at Lori for a while, “Oh”, then looks at Kara with an indecipherable expression. J’onn turns to look at the monitor on the wall, crossing his arms, “Mr. Schott, please help Lori tracking the parademon.”

Winn replies, “Yes Sir,” sliding back to his desk.

“J’onn, are you sure about this?” Alex asks.

J’onn turns to look at Alex, “Yes, Alex, l am, let’s help your niece,” giving her an assuring smile. Alex exchanges a look with Maggie, both walk to J’onn’s side, turning on working mode.

“So, Lori, how can we track the alien? What’s its name again?” Winn asks.

Lori walks to Winn’s side, “A parademon of Darkseid, they attacked Metropolis several years ago, hmm... several years later for you. I know the frequency of their boom tubes, maybe we can track it by its signal, may I?” gesturing to Winn’s computer.

“Sure, go ahead.”

Lori starts to type on the keyboard, “Hmm, your system is ancient, no wonder you didn’t monitor the time-space abnormality, I need to upgrade it”

“Excuse me? Ancient? You are talking to the guy who built the system of—” looking at the computer screen, “Wow, that’s pretty genius...” Winn trails off, amazed.

Lori winks, “You are pretty much a genius too, Uncle Winn.”

Sensing the confidence and calmness exuding from Lori, Kara feels proud and relieved, even though she just met Lori for several hours, she finds Lori is someone she can count on.

Finding her sister is in a daze now, Alex walks to Kara’s side, pokes Kara’s upper arm with her elbow, “Hey, how are you taking all those?”

“I don’t really know,” kara sighs,” Lori came to look for me at CATCO this morning, and Lena was there too, so Lena found out I’m Supergirl and we’re gonna get married in the future, I...” puffing out a breath, “I am still grieving over Mon-el’s departure, but seeing Lori and Leo today makes me realize that I have feelings for Lena, I… I don’t know what to do next.”

“Hey, Kara, listen,” Alex rounds her arm around Kara’s shoulder, “Take all the time you need but talk to Lena first okay? Now that I know she will be your wife in the future, which means she is a family too, we Danvers family are always honest with each other, right? And I will always be here for you.”

Kara smiles graciously at Alex, “Thank you.” The Danvers sisters stay in their moment.

“All done,” Hitting the return key, Lori says, “I think you are good to go now.” 

“Okay, I’ll take it from here,” Winn says, his eyes never leave the computer screen.

“Lori, DEO will take over this case from now and we will keep Supergirl updated, you can go back to join your brother now,” J’onn says.

“Okay, GP J’onn,” Lori nods, walks towards her Jeju.

“What’s the GP?” Winn asks from aside.

J’onn looks at Winn, “Grandpa.”

“Hey, Jeju, GP J’onn said we can go now, can you call mom?” Lori says.

“Oh, okay.” Kara takes her phone out from her pocket, “Excuse me.” Then she walks to the other side of the room to make the call.

Seeing Alex and Lori standing together, Maggie walks to join them, she starts, “So neither of the Danvers sisters is straight,” smiling and showing her cute dimples, “And Luthor? I always sense a gay vibe from her.”

Lori laughs brightly, “Oh, Maggs, you are the gay detector in the family.”

Maggie shoots back, “I’m a Detective, I detect. By the way, I detected Alex is gay too.”

“Aunt Alex is the straightest gay in the family,” Lori says with a grimace.

“Argh!” Alex groans in exasperation, “I hate you two.”

Maggie is still showing her cute dimples, “No, babe, you love me.”

“That’s true.” Alex smiles softly at Maggie, then gives her a peck on the lips.

Lori’s heart melts, “Aaaah, you two are so sweet.”

Kara walks back to them, “Hey, Lori, Lena and Leo are having lunch at Noonan’s now, we can go—” her phone vibrates, Kara pauses to check her phone, “Oh, James needs me back at Catco for an article, I guess you have to go alone, I... I will catch you later.”

“Leo is having lunch with mom without me? He is so dead!” Lori says with indignation, “I gotta go now, Jeju, Aunt Alex, Maggs, Winn, GP J’onn, see ya!” Then she runs away.

“No flying!” Kara exclaims.

Lori turns and raises two fingers to her temple in a solemn salute.

Looking at Lori’s retreating form, “I think Lori is gay too,” Maggie says nonchalantly.

“WHAT?” The Danvers sisters’ eyes pop out.

_Noonan’s_

Watching Lori digging into her fourth sticky bun, _she has the same appetite as Kara,_ Lena thinks, “How are things going at DEO?” she asks.

“No progress yet, but Aunt Alex and GP J’onn will keep an eye on it,” Lori squints at Leo, “It’s an unacceptable behavior for a brother, you went for ice cream without me.”

“Hey, we brought you one too, drama queen.” Leo retorts.

The banter between the siblings reminds Lena about Lex, she wished she could’ve had what they have, poking her kale salad with a fork pensively, “I was thinking how about you stay in my penthouse while you are here?”

“Yes!” The siblings beam at her.

_LENA LUTHOR’S PENTHOUSE_

Opening the door of her penthouse, Lena leads Lori and Leo to the living room and puts her bag on the couch. Pointing in the direction of the rooms, she says, “Lori you can take the guess room next to the restroom on the right, Leo you can take the left one, and make yourself at home.”

Lori observes the surroundings, there is an open kitchen on the left of the living room, a spacious balcony stretching across the whole living room outside on the right, an ivory white couch and a glass coffee table setting horizontally in the middle with a huge TV in front, “I never saw your penthouse before, l might say it’s a little dull,” pointing at the TV, “I haven’t seen this kind of old device since I was nine, the whole time travel thing is so cool!” Lori cheers excitedly.

“This kind of old device?” Lena raises an eyebrow, arms crossing on top of her stomach, “May I ask what kind of device you have to watch shows with in the future?”

Lori giggles, “Wearable virtual reality devices which can be customized, it can be a pair of glass or lenses, anything you can think of.”

“Which allows us to watch shows from any angle we want by walking around,” Leo adds.

Lena is amazed, “That’s cool.”

“But we lost the fun of people cuddling up and exchanging comments,” Lori says with a shrug, “Mom can we watch a movie together tonight? Please!” she pleads.

Lena’s lips curl up, “I think that’s manageable.”

Lori throws her fist in the air, “Yes!”

Lena gestures to the kitchen, “I will go to make us some tea, how about you two taking a seat first.” Putting teakettle on the electric range, Lena turns to face the two kids sitting on stools behind the bar table, “So, a time machine?” She tries to be casual as she could manage, supporting herself with hands on the countertop.

“I knew you can't help asking about that,” Lori says with a goofy smile, “You are a nerd after all.”

“Excuse me,” Lena puts a hand to her chest dramatically as being offended, feigning a shock, “I’ve been called witch or… Luthor bitch, but never a nerd, watch your language here.”

“Ow,” Leo whines in disagreement. He jumps off the stool and rounds the bar counter. Standing beside Lena, he takes Lena’s one hand, “Mom, you are nothing but good.”

Lena fidgets at the sudden show of affection, fighting the urger to withdraw her hand, “Thank you, that’s very assuring.” 

“Actually, good is an understatement,” Leo pulls Lena’s hand a little, getting her attention, “I wish I could’ve told you all the amazing accomplishments and inventions you achieved in the future, the future society is much more harmonious and prosperous with contributions you made, and you donate generously to alien shelters and orphanages every year. The earth doesn’t deserve you.” Hugging Lena from the side, he whispers tenderly, “Mom, I am so proud of you.”

Seeing the scene, Lori trots towards the mother and son to join them while exclaims “Luthor-Danvers sandwich!” excitedly. Hugging her mom from the other side, “I am proud of you too, mom.”

Frozen in the extra tactile touch, “Both of you are proud of things I haven’t done yet?” Lena asks. To her, those two future kids are strangers she just met a half day ago, but all the affection shown to her makes her feel unfamiliar and unworthy. Growing up with the Luthor, things she has achieved hardly met Lillian’s satisfaction, whose attention was basically on the golden boy Lex. Sometimes she couldn’t help wondering what she is to Lillian, a playmate for Lex? An extension of Lionel that she never wanted? A guest who lives under the same roof? One of the limited praise she got from Lillian is beating Lex in chess, and yes everything has to be connected to Lex, Lex is her reference, the family glory. When Lex has gone mad and been locked in prison, left her a tattered name, a name everyone despises, a name obtains vicious prediction, a name draws unamiable glares when she walks in streets. No one was proud of her, even she created a device that expelled the Daxam army, deep down she knows that she people still judge her by her cursed last name and don’t trust her. Except for her best friend, Kara. “Kara Danvers believes in you”, those words echo in her head suddenly, make her warm but also confused at the same time, Kara is the only one believed in her when everyone else thought she was just another Luthor, but also the one concealed her Supergirl identity. It’s so contradictory, she needs some time to process this.

Sensing his mom’s stillness, Leo leans back a little, “Of course we are, and I’m certain you will do it all in the future. I believe in you.”

Softening at Leo’s words, “Thank you, both of you.” Lena puts her both hands separately on each of Lori’s and Leo’s arm looping around her shoulder, giving them both a gracious squeeze.

Lori knows her mom is overwhelmed by today’s flood of information, attempting to cheer her mom up a little, Lori declares mischievously, “Shake time!”.

“No! Lori, no!” Leo protests loudly.

“What’s shake ti—”

Before Lena finishes the sentence, Lori’s both hands reach to Leo’s forearms and clamp her mom safely, then floats up and down three times rapidly while singing “Luthor-Danvers forever!” After landing, Lori lifts the dizzy two once for another squeeze, “Love you.” Lori rubs Lena’s shoulder with her forehead, hoping by doing this can transmit some comfort to her mom.

“Oh god.” Lena is totally petrified, “Put me down please.”

Lori complies with a chortle, letting go of the two. Leo flees to the living room immediately, “You promised you wouldn’t shake me again, I’m gonna tell Jeju you use your power on me when we are back!”

“Oh, you little snitch,” widening her eyes, Lori threatens, “I’m gonna give you more shakes now.” 

Leo moves behind the couch, “Noooooo!” He lifts one arm, gesturing a stop sign.

"Come here, big brother.” Lori launches to Leo. Two kids ( adults, actually) round the couch for several laps.

“Mom, Mayday! Mayday!” Leo shouts.

Bursting out waves of laughter freely at two kids’ antic, “Both of you stop,” Lena says fondly, “Now come to help me with tea, then we can talk about the time machine.”

“Yes ma’am,” Lori stops the chase game, throwing both hands up innocently as a sign of peace, “Truce.” Lori and Leo exchange a triumphant look, both are satisfied with their childish display makes their mom laugh.

Lori walks to Leo’s side, elbowing her brother’s arm slightly, “Mom always come to your rescue, I still think you are her favorite,” she says with a pout.

“You know that’s not true,” Leo disapproves, putting an arm around Lori’s shoulder, “Jeju is her favorite.” But what Lori said is partly accurate, sometimes mom does show partiality to him because he is a normal human kid in the family without superpowers. When they were little, Lori had trouble controlling her powers, she might pat him a little too hard, or push him into the ground accidentally, mom would always run to him immediately and hug him, stroking his back while he was sobbing. Mom is always supportive and soft to him with occasional favoritism, she never makes him feel he is an outsider who doesn’t belong in the family. Maybe, the way his mom treated him when he was a kid is the way she wanted to be treated, Leo thinks bitterly.

Lori chuckles, “Yeah, I can’t argue with that.”

Shaking her head, Lena knows those two kids put on a show purposely only for her, she is grateful for it. The way Lori and Leo interacts makes her chest filling with a feeling, a feeling of warmth that she hasn’t experienced long enough which she almost forget, a feeling of family. She almost doesn’t want this to end, is it true she will marry Kara Danvers who she is secretly falling in love with, and build a family together, having someone love her back. But now it’s not the time for sentiment, shoveling all those feeling down, Lena shouts, “Slackers! To the kitchen, now.”

“Coming!” Lori answers, raising one eyebrow at Leo challengingly, “Race ya.” Then superspeeds to the kitchen.

Leo rolls his eyes, “Show off.”

Now, three of them are sitting on the couch with a cup of tea in their hands, two children take each side of Lena.

Lena takes a sip of her tea, humming silently at the flavor. “So, how does the time machine work?” she asks expectantly.

“With your help and Leo’s,” Lori answers matter-of-factly, “But technologically, exotic matter and a transport portal.”

Lena murmurs, “So exotic matter with negative energy density dose can be captured and be used to stabilize traversable wormholes, I thought it just theoretically possible.”

“Miracle exists, look at me.” Lori quips.

“I am a scientist, I believe in data, not in miracles,” Lena waves her one hand, “And from data I gathered, it requires tremendous science genius to build a time machine.”

Lori tilts her head as the way Kara does, beaming at Lena, “I got my genius gene from you.”

Lena ignores the little tingle in her heart, “The reason you two build a time machine?”

“To impress her girlfriend by taking her back to 1760s in Paris to have dinner.” Leo deadpans.

“She is not my girlfriend!”

“Yet.”

“Argh!” Lori growls, tilting her head back exaggeratedly, “Why do you keep saying that!”

“Because two of you are idiots.”

Lena takes another sip of her tea and smiles knowingly into the cup. “Building a time machine for a not yet girlfriend friend, definitely counts as a grand gesture,” she says jokingly.

“I also got this from you,” Lori retorts, “Buying CATCO for your not dating friend also counts as a grand gesture.”

“Good one!” Leo praises and gives Lori a high five.

 _Busted!_ Lena chocks a little, hiding her blush in her cup, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” 

Squinting at her mom, Lori says, “You admitted that in your wedding speech, we have a video as proof back home, so please don’t embarrass yourself with this kind of contradiction.”

“Speaking of contradiction,” Lena clears her throat and tries to change the topic, “Won’t two of you being here cause any potential violation of causality?” 

“Time has a tendency to keep its own consistency. For instance, one person travels back in time to change an incident in his life, but he can’t change the final consequence, only the approach to the consequence, like a river is divided into two sections by a rock, no matter how huge the rock is, those two branches always flow into the same direction and collect together eventually. Macroscopically speaking, there will be no influence in time-space. Even if the person manages to change a major event in his life somehow, it will only be a tiny little glitch to time-space, which is totally negligible.” Leo explains, “Which means, what happened happens. There is no point in changing the past, what happened makes who we are today. There might be some pain and regrets, but we can always learn from it and fight to do better in the future.”

“Wow, that’s surprisingly wise from a 21-year-old,” Lena says.

Scratching his neck, Leo says bashfully, “Actually, the last part was your words.” 

“Which also means, what will happen happens,” Lori adds, “No matter how far you and Jeju have gone separately, you will always be led together, you being together is meant to happen.”

Lena stays in silence, sinking in those words, which she thinks are scientifically romantic.

Leo says solemnly, “But still, playing with time is highly not recommend, we don’t know what will happen in a differentapproach.”

“Yes, that’s why l also created a memory wipe device as insurance, we have to wipe out the memory about us of people who knows our identity before we go back, you guys will forget about things happened that involved us. I need to make sure things will go exactly as it should go, no worries.” Lori says with a shrug, “Or we can simply ask GP J’onn to help, his telepathy ability is pretty impressive.”

Lena mutters under her breath, “I will forget about you two and Kara’s Supergirl identity?” Thinking of it now, she is a little reluctant to let this glimpse of her future go, she wants to hold it as long as possible.

“Mom, what will happen happens,” Leo holds Lena’s one hand and gives it a squeeze, “We will happen.”

Lori puts one hand on Lena’s lap, “Yes, we will.”

Lena’s eyes flit over her two future kids’ faces, warmth and pride pang in her chest, the future her and Kara certainly did a good job at parenting, which makes feel it a little unauthentic, she never dares to picture future herself in a loving family, let alone marring Kara. Kara is bubbly, trustful, and is…Supergirl, who came to her recuse at the risk of Kryptonite when she was framed and abducted by Lillian, honestly, she can’t remember how many times Supergirl has saved her life. In retrospect, she finds watching Supergirl dragging Morgan Edge out of window is hilarious since she knows Supergirl is Kara’s alter ego. Maybe she should do what future her said, learn from the past and enjoy the present fully while her future kids are around.

Interrupting Lena’s reverie, Lori says, “Mom, I have to give you credit for taking all those pretty well.

“What can I say, I’m a Luthor after all, no stranger to family drama.”

 _Ding!_ The doorbell rings.

Lori looks in the direction of the door, using her X-ray vision to see who is out there, “it’s Jeju!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene in Lena’s penthouse is the first part I wrote for this fic.
> 
> I just can’t help pranking Alex, maybe a girls night in next chapter?


	3. protect Lena Luthor at all cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mostly the Luthor-Danvers family fluff and a little plotline

Standing outside the door of Lena’s penthouse, Kara raises a hand, preparing to ring the doorbell.

_“Buying CATCO_ _for your not dating friend also counts as a grand gesture.”_ Hearing Lori’s voice passing through the door, Kara freezes on the spot with her hand still in the air.

_“You admitted that in your wedding speech, we have a video as proof back home, so please don’t embarrass yourself……”_

The rest of the conversation starts to blur in Kara’s ears, she vaguely hears some phrases like “meant to happen” and “memory wipe” but nothing actually sticks. Kara is in her own state of mind now, the insinuation of Lena likes her back makes her brain swirls like a spiral in her skull, suddenly she recalls that when they were talking about the alien detection device on Lena’s office’s couch, the vibe of Lena’s “Do tell” request is so flirty, and the overflowing flowers Lena sent to her office was not simply a platonic thank you gesture, let alone all the lip biting and the vulnerability Lena showed to her (and only to her), can she be more oblivious? She literally wants to throw herself into space right now.

Noticing the conversation dies down, Kara organizes her thoughts quickly and rings the doorbell. Lori is the one who answers the door with a heartening “Jeju” greeting, before she can give a proper response, Lori grabs her wrist and drags her into the living room. Standing in the living room, Kara clenches and loosens her fist nervously, “Hi, Lena, Leo,” she greets with a timid smile.

“Hi, Kara,” Lena smiles tenderly in response. Then there is a two seconds’ silence.

“How were things—”

“How are you—”

Lena and Kara both start to break the embarrassment that is haunting them and stop at the same time, silence shrouds them again.

_This is worse than that time mom ignored Jeju for four minutes and twenty-six seconds at home because Supergirl was oblivious to the unnecessary handsy grip on her bicep from a woman who she rescued from a landslide, which mom had seen on live news,_ Leo thinks silently. (Yes, Leo was counting because he wanted to know how long can his mom insist on ignoring Jeju for science research, the result is that ignoring never lasted for more than five minutes. You can’t blame Lena for her weakness, no one can survive from Kara’s pout, literally no one.) In order to leave his moms to talk alone freely, Leo says, “Mom, I was thinking since Lori and I are gonna stay here for a while, can we have your credit card to buy us some clothes now and pick up some take-out for dinner on our way home?”

“Yeah, sure.” Lena takes the credit card out from her purse and hands it to Leo.

Comprehended Leo’s intention, Lori hastily grabs Leo’s hand and drags him toward the long passage that leads to the front door before he can react. “Let’s go,” she urges.

“Ouch, slow down,” Leo winces at the forced action.

Lori suddenly stops and turns to look at Kara just when they walked a few steps away, “Jeju stay for dinner, please?”

“Uh…” Kara turns to look at Lena questioningly. After receiving an affirmative nod as response, she says with a bashful smile, “Sure.”

The siblings brighten up at the answer. Lori’s joking natural emerges, “How about we go to buy a manual car that you always wanna try?” she says to Leo loudly enough for her moms to hear on their way out.

“It’s you who want to try, don’t take me as an excuse again.” Leo retorts defensively.

Kara and Lena giggle at the conversation. Lena shakes her head fondly, “No buying cars!”

“Yes ma’am!” Lori exclaims delightfully before closing the door.

Realizing they are left alone and silence comes back again, _Say something, anything!_ Kara panics. Staring at her feet, she says, “I… emm… overheard your conversation earlier, I didn’t mean to though! It’s the super Hear thing, I’m sorry.”

“Which part have you heard?” Lena asks, in the meanwhile, prays internally, _please not the CATCO part_.

“Uh… from the CATCO part.”

_Great_ , Lena scoffs. She sighs and comes up to the blonde, “Kara, I don’t wanna burden you with my feelings for you, we can pretend nothing happened or will happen between us, and just focus on helping Leo and Lori.”

Kara looks into Lena’s emerald eyes, “Lena, I… I have feelings for you too! I only found it out this morning and I feel so stupid right now, I wish I could’ve realized it sooner,” frustration thick in her throat, “And about Supergirl, I didn’t tell you not because I didn’t trust you, you saved my life at the cost of Jack’s for Rao’s sake! Everything happened too fast last year, the Cadmus, Mon-el, Jack’s death, and the invasion of the Daxam, then I drowned in the sorrow of Mon-el’s departure. Please believe me I didn’t mean to deceive you, it just there was never a good timing, I’m so so sorry,” earnest pleading twinkles in her eyes.

Taken aback by Kara’s confession, Lena takes a moment to reflect on her words, “To be honest, I didn’t know how to feel about your Supergirl identity this morning, maybe a little shocked and angry,” she starts, “but the fact that you’ve saved my life for so many times and you once told me Kara Danvers believed in me brought to my mind later, so I really shouldn’t hold any grudge against you, besides, I’m incapable of staying mad at you,” looking into Kara’s sapphire eyes with sincereness, “But I don’t think now is a good time to pursue anything between us.”

“Oh,” Kara darts her eyes to the floor, struggling to make herself functional.

Lena reaches out to hold Kara’s hand. Trying to smooth the stiffness crawling on Kara’s body, she continues, “Kara, I’m not turning you down, it’s just this situation… you heard what Lori said, we won’t remember any of those when they are gone and I won’t remember you’re Supergirl, it’s not fair to me, or to you,” getting Kara to look at her again, “Can we just let things play themself out?”

Kara smiles appreciatively at Lena and gives her hand a gentle squeeze, “Yeah, I guess what will happen happens.”

Softened at Kara’s words, Lena takes one step forward and wraps the blonde into her arms and places her hands on the blonde’s back, “I really hope so.”

Kara rounds her arms around the brunette’s waist. Appressing her cheek to the brunette’s ear, she whispers tenderly, “We will.”

They stay at each other’s embrace as if they are the only people who matters at the moment.

The phone in Kara’s pocket vibrates untimely, interrupting the two’s intimacy. Kara groans in chagrin, lets Lena go and checks her phone, “It was Alex asking if you are still up to tomorrow night’s girls night at my apartment?”

“Yes, I am, can’t wait to meet my future sister-in-law,” Lena jokes with quirking up an eyebrow, “Now I’m gonna make you a cup of tea, please get yourself comfortable.” Then she turns and walks away with swaying her ass a little, leaving Kara blushing a deep red and useless again.

Two hours later, the Luthor-Danvers family sit around the dining table, take-out foods are laid on it, there are six boxes of potstickers, four boxes of chicken chow mein, one beef with broccoli that provides the sole vitamin, one Pepperoni pizza and one Hawaii pizza (there are one and a half Kryptonians, they need calories.) Lena watches the other three people wolfing down the meal in amazement, three boxes of potstickers are already gone, _I need to stock more food in my penthouse,_ she makes a mental note.

Leo notices his mom is in a daze, “Mom, dig in before Jeju and Lori consume everything,” he says with a bite of pizza in his mouth.

“Oh, yeah,” Lena starts to eat her normal portion of food. A moment later she stops as if something is bothering her, looking at the siblings, she says, “Any idea why the parademon attacked you?”

Lori shakes her head. “Dunno, I guess it’s for the future us to find out,” she says with a shrug, frowning her eyebrows, “But it was much stronger than Uncle Clark described, he said it was easy to subdue a parademon so I think it was enhanced somehow.”

“Yes, I noticed there was a metal implant on its back,” Leo adds.

“Hmm,” Lena hums. Three seconds later, she gasps, “Clark Kent is Superman? I should’ve thought of it.”

Kara chokes on her chow mein and coughs.

Lori hands her Jeju a cup of water and looks at her with sympathy.

Kara says after composing herself, “Lena, I didn’t—”

Lena waves her hand, “Kara, it’s okay, I know it’s not your secret to tell,” trying to prove she is absolutely fine with it, she adds in a flirtatious tone, “So there indeed is some steel under that Kansas wheat, I find it sexy.”

“Eww!” the siblings whine at the same time.

“Lena…” Kara grimaces painfully.

“What, It’s just a friendly compliment,” Lena says with a lopsided smirk.

“As friendly as you leering at Supergirl?” Lori arches one eyebrow.

Lena hurriedly defends herself, “I did not leer at Supergirl!” a faint pink flush colors her cheeks.

“You did and you will,” Leo concludes.

“I… I…” Lena stammers, she glances at Kara who is also blushing, both of them duck their heads when their eyes meet to stare at their plates like the food is more delicious than each other.

The siblings exchange a triumphant look, laugh up their sleeves because they hardly had any chance like this to tease their moms at home, and they’re gonna make the most of it.

They continue to eat in comfortable silence.

“Not this again!” Leo laments when there is only one potsticker left.

Lori says nonchalantly, “You know the drill.”

“What drill?” Kara asks.

Leo pinches the bridge of his nose, “We need to rock-paper-scissors for the last potsticker, it’s a Luthor-Danvers family rule.” It’s a compulsive game (even though he doesn’t want it at all) that started from the time when Lori and Kara both pouted at Lena, wanting her to make a verdict of the ownership of the last potsticker.

“Count me in!” Kara rubs her hands in delight for the challenge.

“Mom?” Lori invites.

Lena purses her lips, “Count me out.”

“Okay,” Lori claps her hands together, “No cheating, ready?”

Kara and Leo nod in reply. Stretching out one arm above the dining table,

three of them shout simultaneously, “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”

“Yes!” Kara celebrates her victory spontaneously, then reaches out to claim her trophy and puts it to her mouth slowly to put on a show.

Watching her Jeju chewing the last potstickers with a smug smile, Lori says to Lena, “Mom, sometimes I can’t help wondering what you saw in Jeju.”

Lena just beams with smiles, “Finish your meal then we can watch a movie as you requested.”

After the Luthor-Danvers family clean the dining table, Lori sits cross-legged on the white fluff carpet in front of the TV,scrolling through a movie list, being picky about her choice. Leo comes to sit beside her, handing her a cup of hot chocolate, “Can you just choose a random one? You haven’t watched most of them.”

“Thanks,” Lori takes the mug and puts it down on the floor, “But all those movies are produced earlier than me and most are about heterosexual couples, so boring.”

“Can’t agree more,” Leo nods affirmatively. Then the siblings go back to their mission, eyeing the screen concentratedly.

Seeing the siblings are indecisive on the movie choice, Kara walks to sit at Lori’s the other side, and takes the remote from Lori, “New rule, the potsticker winner to call the shots.” Her announcement causes the siblings to squint at her but without complaint. She scrolls down and chooses Toy Story 3, pressing play, she mutters, “Here we go.”

“A cartoon?” Lena queries from the couch with a woolen blanket on her lap and a massive tea mug in her hands, who changed to a comfy black cashmere sweater with its sleeves covering her palms and a pair of jeans earlier, and loosened her hair cascading over her shoulder.

Kara gasps, apparently is offended by Lena’s remark. Turning to look at Lena and making air quotes with her fingers, “It’s not just a cartoon, this series always makes me cry, you take that back,” she says with a pout.

Lena chuckles. “Okay, I take it back, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” she says in an indulgent tone.

Satisfied with the brunette’s apology, Kara turns back to the TV and settles down to enjoy her movie.

Lori elbows Kara’s side, “Jeju, you can’t sit here with us, only children can sit on the floor, it’s a Luthor-Danvers family rule,” gesturing to the couch, “You have to sit on the couch.”

“Okay,” Kara complies absentmindedly. She gets up and walks to sit beside Lena without her eyes leaving the screen.

On the other hand, Lena sincerely doubts it’s a rule Lori just made up but she says nothing for she would never turn down a chance like this to be in Kara’s proximity. Both women miss Leo giving Lori a thumb-up.

As the movie playing on the screen, Leo bumps Lori’s shoulder with his own, “I think you are like Mr. Potato Head, weird but reliable in a weird way.”

“Blah! Apparently, I’m Buzz Lightyear and you are like Rex the dinosaur who freaks out on everything.” Lori retorts.

“Nope, Mom is Buzz Lightyear so you’re still Mr. Potato Head,” Leo disagrees.

Lori tucks Leo’s neck with her arm and pulls him towards her lap, “Take it back or I’ll tickle you,” she threatens.

“Never surrender to power!” Leo yells.

Lena and Kara both simmer with laughter at the scene before them, Lena turns to look at Kara, “I think you are like Woody who is caring and passionate but always acts before thinks.”

Kara grins, “I can live with Woody and I do agree that you are Buzz Lightyear,” tilting her head, “And you definitely should watch the first movie, Buzz Lightyear was so hilarious at the beginning.”

“Maybe next time together?”

“Yeah, next time,” Kara puts her hand atop Lena’s, smiling with tenderness. The two hold hands for the rest of the movie, only Rao knows whether they pay attention to the movie or not.

When the credits start to roll, Lori stretches her arms in the air,

Kara hastily lets go of Lena’s hand and stands up, “It’s getting late and I should head back to my place now, see you tomorrow at girls night?”

Lena withdraws her hand to massage her neck, smiling bashfully, she says, “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

Excited by the conversation, Lori straightens her neck to look at her Jeju, “Can I come to the girls night? I’ve never been to one because I was a minor before, please?” she pleads with a pout.

“Can I come too? I’ve never been to a girls night neither because I’m a boy, please?” Leo mirrors Lori’s pout.

Not immune to the siblings’ pouts and not knowing what’s ahead of her yet, Kara agrees, “Yeah, why not, the more the merrier, I guess I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Lori cheers while rushing to her Jeju. She hugs Kara and says, “See you all tomorrow, Jeju.” Then she leans down to pecked her Mom on the cheek, “Good night, Mom.” She shoots Leo a _you know what to do_ look before walking to her bedroom.

Leo quickly feigns an exaggerated yawn, “Time travel is exhausting, I need to go to sleep now, good night Mom and Jeju.” Then he disappears to his bedroom too.

_They certainly can read social cues,_ Kara thinks. Being left alone with Lena again, she starts to ramble, “I’ll inform Alex about their attendance and ask her to bring more food, maybe I should order more pizza—”

“Kara,” Lena stands up and puts a hand on Kara’s upper arm, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll bring more take-out, get home safely,” she tiptoes a little to give a kiss on Kara’s cheek that lingers a little too long, “Good night.”

Kara is totally struck by the kiss, “I… good you, see night, no I mean good night,” unable to form a coherent sentence. After receiving Lena’s amused snort, she leaves the penthouse mechanically.

Her body self-navigates her back to her apartment with her mind drifting to her future family along the way.

It’s a lovely morning, Lena stands barefooted in her kitchen, watching her morning coffee brewing in her coffee machine. She only wears a shirt that Kara hastily took off and left on their bedroom floor last night, morning sunshine touches her bare legs softly, making her glow in the luminous beam. Her finger stays at a spot behind her ear after running one hand through her hair and slides up and down tenderly, recalling how much good care was taken by Kara’s lips last night. The coffee machine beeps to announce the coffee is ready, pulling her back from her reverie into the present. She pours herself a good amount of black coffee, intending to dispel fogginess and exhaustion from last night, she takes a sip and signs in relaxation. Then she feels that her waist is wrapped by two perfectly toned arms and a beefy chest press against her back, she leans back to the warm embrace, “Did I wake you up?”

“No, you didn’t, I just can’t wait to start a new day with you,” Kara whispers to her ear, who is wearing a black tanktop and a grey short.

With Kara dropping a train of kisses on her neck, she titters and tilts her head to give her wife more access. Kara’s kisses goes all the way down to her collarbone, making her breath hot and short. After putting her coffee mug on the countertop, she turns and puts her arms aroundher wife’s neck, eyeing her wife’s lips,she say, “You know, I have a board meeting later and I can’t be late,”

Kara leans in, “You are the boss so you are allowed to be late.”

She slides down a hand to Kara’s chest to stop her going further, “I just had black coffee which you deem unbearably bitter, you might taste it.”

Kara gazes at the emerald eyes intensely, “But you’re sweet.”

She bursts into laughter. “You really know how to do sweet talk,” she says while stroking her wife’s earlobe.

Pulling her closer and leaning in again, Kara says, “Only to you.”

She lifts her chin to meet the kiss, just when she can feel Kara’s breath on her lips, she hears—

_“Mom!”_

She tries to ignore it.

_“Mom!”_

She suddenly opens her eyes and sits up. With memory about yesterday flooding into her brain, she remembers that she is not alone in her penthouse.

“Mom, you have nothing in your fridge except of coffee and tea, can we please go out for breakfast?” Lori exclaims from outside the door.

Lena stays quiet.

“Mom! I heard you’re awake.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Lena echoes.

“Okay, Leo and I will wait in the living room, take your time.”

Lena falls back on her bed. Throwing an arm over her face, she mutters under her breath, “I hate coffee.”

_CATCO_

_Kara Danvers is extremely abnormal today,_ is what every employee in Catco thinks. Everyone knows Kara is sunny and cheerful who smiles a lot, but never like this. The smile on her face and the titter she lets out from time to time imply she is in her own happy bubble this whole morning.

Three gossip people gather around a desk, watching Kara humming a song with suspicion.

“I think she banged Supergirl,” one of them says. His conclusion makes the other two stare at him unbelievably, “C’mon, how else can she always get an exclusive from Supergirl?”

“No, I think it was Ms. Luthor, I heard they hugged tightly in the middle of the office,” another one offers her own perspective, “And we all witnesses that Ms. Luthor came to Catco to have lunch with Kara last year, I think it was a date.”

“Maybe she won a lottery?” the third one suggests.

“Hmm…” they calculate the possibility of their theories separately.

Seeing James Olsen approaching Kara’s desk, three people scatter immediately, pretending to run errands.

James stops beside Kara’s desk, “Hey Kara, how did things go yesterday?”

“Oh!” Kara startles. She turns to face James, “Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming, what did you say?”

“Are you okay? You seem distracted.”

Kara fidgets her glasses, “Me? Distracted? Never.”

James frowns, “Okay… how did things go yesterday.”

“Oh, Lena and I talked, so it was fine.”

James frowns deeper, “Uh… I was talking about the alien.”

“Phew,” Kara ducks her head embarrassedly, “Yeah, of course, DEO is dealing with this case and Winn will keep me updated.”

“Do you need Guardian’s help on this?”

“Nah, it won’t be necessary, but thanks for offering.”

“But—” James is interrupted by Kara’s ringtone.

Kara picks up her phone from the desk, “Winn got a lead that might track the alien, I gotta go.” She promptly marches to the elevator, leaving James standing still with his mouth agape.

After coming out of the restaurant with their stomachs filled, Leo and Lori walk by Lena’s each side on the street, continuing to share their own suggestions on a prototype that Lena was building previously.

“I could use brains like yours’ in L-Corp, I really want to poach you two from the future, you know I can pay you properly,” Lena jokes. 

Lori takes it as praise, “I’m flattered, I’d like to work for you for free.”

Leo beams, “I’d like that too but one day at a time, Mom.”

Here it is again, warmth bubbling up in Lena’s chest, she only gets along with the siblings for one day, but the affection that has been shown to her and conversation unfolding between them, even the physical contact, feel so nature. Being around the siblings feels like breathing in the smell of the grass after a rain, which is relaxing.

“I’m going to my lab to work on sending a message to the future, you two wanna tag along?” Lena asks expectantly.

Lori grins from ear to ear, “Lucky for you, we don’t have anywhere else to be.”

“Lena, what a surprise.” A man’s voice holds back Lena’s forming comment on Lori’s smug attitude.

Lena recognizes this voice which belongs to Morgan Edge, so she puts on her business mask and greets with a hint of antipathy, “Morgan.”

Edge comes up to Lena, “How are you settling in CATCO? How rude of me to forget to send you a gift for your crowning as the new queen of media. Ha, how about a pink name tag that prints The Good Luthor?”

Lena crosses her arms, schooling her face not to show any emotion, “I don’t need anything from you.”

“How about an advice then, you can have the media to kiss your ass as much as you want to advocate your good deeds since you own CATCO, to make the most of your capital.”

Lena smirks, “Apparently you don’t understand the significance of free press, you should’ve been thanking me for buying a company you don’t know how to run.”

Edge smacks his lips disapprovingly, “You women are so sentimental, it’s bad for business.”

Leo takes one step forward to shield Lena protectively, broadening his shoulders, he says to Edge in an intimidated tone, “I need you to back off, NOW.”

Lori steps forward too, standing straight beside Leo with her hands on her hips, “Leave before I throw you to the middle of the road.”

Edge steps back with raising his both hands, glancing at two human shields, “Wow, no need for violence,” looking over their shoulders to stare at Lena, “I see you hired two bodyguards for it’s not safe to walk on the street with Luthor logo on your head, good for you.”

Anger flaring in Lori’s chest, grinding her teeth and clenching her fists, she takes one more step to invade Edge’s personal space, “I dare you to say that again.”

Leo grabs Lori’s wrist in time, preventing her from doing anything reckless, “Lori, he is not worth it.”

Stepping in to ease the hostile tension, she says to Edge, “Let’s not make a scene here, just leave.”

Edge stares at Lena for a moment and nods, smoothing non-existent creases out of his suit, he says, “Good day.” Then he walks away.

Lori deflates while watching Edge disappear into the crowd. She turns to face Lena and says frustratedly, “Mom, I’m sorry. I know you are totally capable of handling assholes, I just can’t stand he disrespected you.”

Lena looks at the siblings, “You have nothing to be sorry for, you were just protecting me. I should thank you both for standing up for me.”

Leo puts one arm around Lena’s shoulder, “That’s exactly what family for. Besides, that man is such a sexist, we would react even it wasn’t you.”

Lori puts on a _yikes_ expression, “Yes, and do people really talk like that in 2017? It sucks.”

Proud of the siblings’ righteousness, Lena asks out of curiosity, “So feminism is normalized in the future?”

Lori shrugs, “Not really, some people just won’t change.”

Lena’s phone rings at this moment, she fetches it from her purse and finds it’s a text from Kara, “Lori, Kara needs you at DEO, can you—”

“Yes! I can! See ya!” Lori runs away before Lena looking up.

Lena shakes her head. Looking at Leo, she says, “I guess it’s just you and me then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got a little out of hand and I suck at tough talk.


	4. bonding part Ⅰ

_LENA LUTHOR’S PERSONAL LAB_

Leo stands in the middle of the lab, looking around with curiosity. The lab is so different from the future one they’re using, there are several white laboratory tables placed around concrete columns, only equipped with necessary instruments and accessories, no couch in the corner for the Luthor-Danvers family to sit on for a break, it’s monotonous but bright and tidy. He murmurs, “Wow, this looks like a museum.”

Lena stops her forward steps, turns around to look at Leo, frowning but smiling, “Did you just call my technology backward?”

Leo hastily waves both his hands in denial, “No, no, no, what I was saying is that this…” gesturing around him, “Is educational, it’s like witnessing history,” he walks to a laboratory table with some prototypes on it, picking up a sphere one, “If I’m correct, this is a prototype of marine debris collection, and that,” he puts the prototype down, pointing at a cuboid one, “Is that a search and rescue drone?”

“Yes, those are just some gadgets I’m working on.”

“Gadgets?” Leo disapproves, “These are innovation and life-changing technology, you really should give yourself some credit, Mom.”

Lena chuckles, “So lucky for you, I’m here to save your ass.”

Leo beams with satisfaction, “Cocky, but it’s the attitude I’m familiar with, keep it up.” He walks to Lena’s side, and pushes her to a laboratory table with two computers on it. Giving her shoulders a squeeze, he says, “Please start to save my ass.” Then he drops down on a lab stool next to Lena.

Lena shakes her head with a grin on her face, and starts to work. With The sound of typing on the keyboard echoing in the lab, she mutters under her breath with her eyes fixing on the screen concentratedly, “Hope I will still use the same communication frequency in my lab, it will make my work easier.” She notices that Leo is spinning on the stool after a while, she stops to glare at him, “Are you going to just sit there and spin?”

Leo stops his circumference movement, turning his head to look at his mom, “Do you want me to get you a cup of coffee?” Seeing his mom raising one eyebrow, “A cup of tea?” he asks tentatively.

Lena is amused, “What I meant is, aren’t you going to help me with sending a message to the future me?”

“Ha,” Leo puffs out a breath, a little embarrassed at his misunderstanding. Scratching his neck with his fingers, he says, “But you are the genius and the parent here, you don’t need my help, my job here is to keep you company.”

Lena squints at him. “I think you’re just being lazy,” she says with a hint of laughter in her voice.

Leo pouts, raising both hands in surrender, “You got me,” but showing no regret at all.

Seeing the expression on Leo’s face, Lena can’t resist the urge to ruffle his hair, “Smart-ass,” she comments fondly. Leo’s hair feels so soft under her palm, she can’t help rubbing his shaggy hair a few more times. She feels there is a strip bulge just above his ear when her fingers brush through his temple, she pauses, “Is that a scar?”

Leo quickly raises one hand to fix his hair, “Oh, yes, I got it long time ago.”

Lena withdraws her hand and shifts her weight to the other leg, “What happened?” Noticing Leo’s body stiffened, she promptly reassures, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“No, no, there is nothing I can’t talk to you about,” Leo scratches his temple, looking at his momnervously, “It.. it was Lillian.”

Lena frowns. Crossing her arms, she asks with indignation in her voice, “What did my mother do?”

“There was one time Jeju got seriously injured during an alien invasion, everyone was in the field, you had to asked Lillian to babysit Lori and I so that you could go to DEO to look after Jeju. Lillian thought I don’t deserve the Luthor name because I’m just a normal kid, no high intelligence or superpowers, so she was kinda harsh on me back then. She asked me to make her a cup of tea to prove myself useful after she came to our house, I was eight at that time, I couldn’t reach the cupboard, so I moved a chair to stand on but I accidentally fell and my head hit a debris of the tableware on the floor. Lillian was terrified when she saw me bleeding, she picked me up and stitched me up, that’s how I got the scar,” putting on a faint smile, “But that was the first time she hugged me properly, not too bad for me.”

“Leo, I’m sor—”

“Mom, it wasn’t your fault,” Leo interrupts, “You don’t need to apologize for other people’s mistake. Besides, you were furious at her when you got home, you forbade her from visiting us for two years, she is civil now, and she is always nice to Lori, so don’t worry,” he quickly adds.

Lena sighs. She knows that Lillian morbidly takes the Luthor name seriously and intends to show obvious favoritism, but still, what Lillian did to an eight-year-old is so fucked up, she genuinely hopes this cycle ends at her. Putting one hand on Leo’s shoulder, she says, “I’m so sorry you’ve gone through that, no one should be treated like that. It’s her loss she couldn’t see what I see in you, and accompany you to grow up.”

Leo puts his hand atop Lena’s, “You and Jeju are always here for me, I can’t express how grateful I am to you, I love you so much.”

Touched by Leo’s words, Lena shoves Leo’s shoulder and jokes, “You’re gonna make me cry, but I can’t afford words of me crying spread out, so I have to imprison you here.”

“C’mon!” Leo leans back a little, “You cried for the birthday present Lori and I secretly prepared for you for the first time, you’re the crybaby in the family.”

Lena quirks up an eyebrow, “You are grounded for saying that.”

Leo quickly jumps up, “I’m an adult now, you can’t ground me!”

Lena says indulgently, “Okay, adult, how about you go to get us some coffee and I the parent continue to do the genius stuff?”

Leo makes a deep bow, “It’s my honor to serve you.”

Lena laughs at Leo’s antic, handing him a credit card, “Off you go, adult.”

Leo takes over the credit card. “My Queen,” he nods solemnly before retreating.

Lena diverts her attention back to work after watching Leo hopping out of the lab, but the smile on her face never fades.

_DEO_

Kara is wearing her Supergirl attire, waiting for Lori at the terrace of the briefing room that she usually flies in as entrance. She puts her body weight on her forearms that are resting on the railing with her hands clasping loosely together, watching the city being busy. This is her favorite spot in DEO, she usually comes here to thinks over something or thinks about nothing, just stares into space and tries to recognize stars by using the astronomy she knows. She always wishes that she could share the knowledge she learned in Krypton with someone who knows her for who she really is, and now she is a little overwhelmed that this wish will come true in a near future.

And now, she needs Lori’s help to identify the alien and to provide more information. On the one hand, no matter how selfless Supergirl is, Kara Danvers can’t resist the temptation to spend more time with her future family, on the other hand, she knows being out in the field might be dangerous, she doesn’t want it for Lori, it’s a dilemma for her. Hearing Alex’s footsteps, her straightens her body.

Alex is on the phone while approaching Kara, “Okay, see you later, love you.” She hangs up the phone and walks to Kara’s side, “Hey, Maggie just called to tell me she is investigating a case now, so she might be late for the girls night but she will come right after she finishes her work,” noticing her sister is in a trance, she asks with worry in her eyes, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kara says, “I was thinking about Lori, I’m a little worried about her going out on a mission with me, what if she gets hurt?”

Alex chuckles, “It’s good to see you finally understand the feeling of me watching you being a superhero out there,” nudging Kara’s arm playfully, “You grow up now, huh?”

Kara frowns, “Alex, I’m serious.”

“I know,” Alex smiles, “You know, when you first decided to come out as Supergirl, I was worried sick about you getting hurt or your human identity got exposed, but look where it took us,” gesturing to the city beneath them, “You’ve helped a lot of people and you’re the symbol of hope now,” looking into Kara’s eyes with sincereness, “Maybe you also should let Lori decide whether to go out with you, besides, I know you will do your best to protect her if she decides to do so.”

Kara smiles gratefully at her sister for she always knows what to say to comfort her, “Yeah, thank you.”

Lori’s voice comes from a few steps away at this time, “Aunt Alex, thanks for not forgetting to give me clearance to enter DEO.”

The Danvers sisters turn to face Lori. Alex nudges her sister’s side and whispers, “Speaking of the devil—”

Lori purses her lips, “You know I can hear you, right?”

Alex laughs and says to Kara, “Good luck to your temporary responsibility.” Then she gestures the other two to follow her.

“I’ll have Winn to give you a brief,” Alex says to Lori while walking towards the central console.

Lori nods to her aunt in response. Then she looks at her Jeju and says, “Jeju, it’s cool to see you in your old dress suit, but I have to say, it’s no match for the current one Mom designed for you.”

At the mention of Lena, the corners of Kara’s mouth curl up unconsciously. She asks out of curiosity, “What’s the current one like?”

Lori winks at her Jeju and says in a mysterious tone, “Let’s not spoil the surprise.”

Kara pouts. Putting on her best puppy eyes, she pleads, “But I won’t remember it anyway.”

“Nope,” Lori waves one hand, “Your doggy trick only works for mom.” She makes a grimace at her Jeju before running away to the central console, leaving the superhero pouting harder.

Alex signals Winn who is standing beside her to brief with a nod when Lori arrives.

Winn always finds Alex intimidating with her special agent gear on, he hurriedly zooms in the map on the main screen with his tablet and puts a ping on the last location of the parademon he detected. Pointing at the red dot, he says, “I detected a signal from a desert 35 miles away from the city, the parademon was keeping heading west, which leads to a forest, but the signal was interrupted for unknown reason three hours ago,” looking at Kara who just joined them, “I think it’s time for Supergirl to go on a tour.”

Looking at Lori, Kara says, “Lori, can you try to track the alien again?”

Lori shrugs, “Yeah.” Lori immediately taps away on the tablet Winn handed to her and frowns when Winn tilts his head to peep her maneuver for she is making no progress. She shakes her head after a while, “There is something wrong with the signal receiver hardware, which is not stable enough to track the parademon anymore.”

Kara nods, “I’ll go search for it,” looking at Winn, “Winn, send me the coordinate.”

“Right away,” Winn salutes in response.

Lori cranes her neck, “Jeju! Can I come with you?” looking at Kara, she adds with the so-called doggy trick she learned over the years, “I want to help, Please?” 

Surprised by Lori’s enthusiasm, Kara sighs after exchanging a look with Alex, “Okay, but you have to do exa—”

“Do exactly as you say,” Lori finishes Kara’s sentence with a grin, “It’s the first rule of going on a mission with you, I know.”

Kara beams at Lori, wondering whether Lori has the same commitment to protecting the city as her or is just thrilled at the chance to hang out with the younger version of herself. But either way, she is content with having Lori around, and she definitely doesn’t want to put pressure on Lori by asking about her life plan, so she says, “I hope you can fly as fast as me.”

Lori accepts the challenge pleasantly, walking to the terrace with locking her gaze on her Jeju, “Just for you know, I learned from the best.”

Kara says noncommittally while striding behind Lori, “I guess we’ll find out soon. But remember to fly high enough to avoid unnecessary attention to you, and don’t break the sound barrier.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lori answers before taking off. 

The wind swept up by Lori makes Kara’s hair and cape sway in the air. Kara looks up and shouts, “You cheated!” Then she promptly takes off to catch up with Lori after Super Hearing Lori shouting back a _hurry up._

Kara touches down first, Lori is only two seconds slower than her. Watching Lori fixing her wind-blown hair with her fingers, she says smugly, “I guess I haven’t taught you how to keep hair neat while flying?”

Lori retorts, “I was distracted by your mini-skirt.” Sensing her Jeju is about to ask about her future suit again, she mimes her Jeju’s smug attitude, “I will never tell you that.”

Kara has nothing to say in reply for she forgot she is dealing with Lena Luthor’s daughter who can make people fluster with a simple stare. Thinking of Lena now, Lena’s fragile face suddenly comes to her mind, her exquisite nose, her soft lips— _Wait, how do I know her lips are soft? I haven’t touched them yet. Wait, what do I mean by yet? But it’s not like I don’t want to touch them. Wait, I’m on a mission now, focus!_ Kara rebukes herself. Shaking her untimely thoughts away, she says while looking around, “This is an extensive range so we better split up.”

“Sure.”

After receiving Lori’s response, Kara continues to deploy, “I will cover the west because it might get tricky to search in the forest, you go cover the east, we’ll meet here in two hours if we don’t find the alien’s whereabouts.” Part of her still worries about Lori’s safety, so she adds, “If you find it, call out for me and wait, don’t go after it alone.”

“Got it,” Lori answers with a reassuring smile before turning to fly away.

Kara keeps watching Lori as if she can keep Lori safe by doing this until her figure becomes a black dot. She eventually drags her eyes aways and heads to her assignment.

Kara is in the air with using her X-ray vision to search the forest when she hears Lori calling out for her. She immediately flies towards the direction of Lori’s voice, hoping Lori would stay put until she arrives. After landing beside Lori in the desert, she asks eagerly, “Did you find anything?”

“Nah, I’ve covered the east, the north, and the south, no trace of the alien.” Seeing her Jeju’s eyes widen, Lori shrugs, “Told you I’m fast, and I’m hungry now, can we go back?”

Kara sighs in relief. Agreeing with Lori’s no hungry superhero principle, she says, “How about we head back to DEO first so that we can go to my apartment with Alex? And we can pick up some pizza on the way home.”

Brightened up at the mention of food, Lori challenges, “The first one arrives DEO gets to choose pizza topping!”

Kara grins, “Only without cheating.”

Lori huffs, “I can beat you with my eyes closed,” quirking up one eyebrow, “On the count of three, two, one—” she takes off while counting one, making Kara yell a _HEY_ before keeping up with her.

_KARA DANVERS’S APARTMENT_

“So Maggie and I will get an Alaskan Malamute?” Alex asks Lori who is sitting between herself and Kara on the couch. One of her arms drapes casually on the top of the back cushion, and holding a bottle of beer in the other hand, apparently is curious about her own future.

“Is this 21 questions? Five dollars for one question,” Lori teases and extends one hand to her aunt.

Alex slaps Lori’s palm loudly, glaring at her, “Such a miser.” Then she tilts her head to the side to look at Kara with eyes wide-open, “Discipline your daughter.”

Lori leans on Kara for moral support. “Mom said information is valuable, and I’m just making money with something I’m good at,” she says with a lopsided smirk exactly like the way Lena would do.

Kara snorts delightfully, “I agree with her.”

 _Taking side already?_ Alex rolls her eyes internally. “Traitor,” she comments before taking a swig of her beer, a glimmer of smile naturally showing in her eyes. Alex is not a gullible person, she keeps her guard up high for her loved ones but talking with Lori feels like sneaking out to the roof with Kara for stargazing when they were in Midvale, which is bonding and familiar. The way Lori gloats at the food on the coffee table in front of them and the way she lifts her chin triumphantly when she smiles in smug self-satisfaction give Alex a sense of deja vu of teenager Kara, somehow, Lori dashes into her heart easily like it’s where she belongs.

“His name is Hugo and he’s so sweet, he’d lay by my side when I sleep at your house,” Lori looks at Alex, “Don’t worry, I’ll charge the future you after I get back.”

Alex shoves Lori’s shoulder, “You little cheap-ass.” Her comment makes both blondes explode with laughter. Wondering how close they are in the future, she continues to ask, “Do you come to my place often?”

“We have family gatherings weekly and I slept at your house…” Lori drawls the last syllable, trying to search for an accurate word, “Regularly before I went to college.”

Alex expects Lori to elaborate, “What do you mean by regularly?”

The question makes Lori visibly gag. She gives her Jeju a quick glances, then she stares at her aunt, “You really wanna know?”

“Yeah?” Alex frowns a little, unsure why Lori acts like this.

 _Okay, you ask for it_ , Lori sighs. “Okay, you knew I also have Super Hear like Jeju, so when my moms are…” taking a deep breath, “Having sex, it’s unbearably inappropriate and embarrassing for me to stay at home, so your house basically is my sanctuary,” she finishes in one breath with throwing up one hand.

A sip of beer squirts from Alex’s mouth and drips onto her grey henley shirt, “I need more alcohol for this, and I need to clean myself.” Then she gets up and walks to the kitchen.

After hearing the answer, Kara bends down to bury her face in the pillow on her lap ashamedly while grumbling and pondering the philosophical question of _why am I here!_ (You re at your own apartment, Kara!)

Lori pats her Jeju’s back rhythmically for consolation, but complacent about her little vengeance, _this time travel is so worth it_ , she thinks. The murmur of Lena and Leo’s voice reaches her ears from the hallway outside the door, she nudges her Jeju’s shoulder to call attention to their arrival, “Mom and Leo are here, do you need me to answer the door or—”

Kara sits upright rapidly, “Nope!” Pushing herself to her feet with a pink flush still on her cheek, “I… I’ll get it,” she adjusts her askew glasses while striding to the door.

Standing by the door, she reminds herself, _act natural._ She smoothes her printed blouse with both hands before opening the door with an overexcited “Hi!”

The opened door reveals Lena raising one hand who is about to knock with a tote bag in the other hand, and Leo holding a massive bag of take-out in his chest.

“That was quick,” Lena chuckles, looking at Kara with adoration, “I guess I need to get used to your Super Speed ASAP.”

Kara grins, “I have other skill sets you might also need to get used to.”

Leo’s eyes pop out, _Are you aware of what you just said_? he screams inwardly. He clears his throat and says in a _I’ve had enough of it_ tone, “I’m gonna go in to put down this bag, and leave you to… whatever this is.” Then he goes straight through the door and walks towards the kitchen, leaving Kara confused and Lena blushing at the realization of sexual implication in their previous conversation.

Looking at Lena, Kara says, “How is the message thing going?”

“No progress yet, how is the alien searching thing going?”

Kara shrugs, “No progress yet.”

Lena chuckles at the same answer, looking into the apartment, she teases, “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

“Oh! Come in!” Kara instantly steps back to let Lena in, not natural at all.

Putting the bag on the countertop, Leo sees Alex is cleaning her shirt with a towel by the sink, “Hi, Aunt Alex,” he greets.

Alex turns to look at Leo, “Hi! You are Leo, right?”

“Yes,” Leo smiles, “I keep wondering whether you’re cooler when you’re younger, I guess now I finally have a chance to find out.”

Alex feigns being offended, “Hey, I’m always the coolest one in the family, no matter my age.”

“Not as cool as Maggs.”

Alex laughs, “Hmm. I can’t argue with that.” The way Leo says Maggie’s name with admiration and the reassuring traits he exudes make her warms up to the young man immediately, and the way he talks to her makes her firmly believe that they’re close in the future. The idea of expanding the Danvers family is eagerly anticipating.

“What happened to your shirt?” Leo asks.

“Oh,” Alex gasps, “We were talking about why Lori slept at my place re… regularly.”

“Ugh, say no more please,” Leo pleads, “Lori and I suffered a lot before we went to college, I’m blessed with no superpowers, but not the same for Lori,” shaking his head sympathetically, “Poor Lori.” Noticing his two moms are standing next to him now and Lena is taking out two Scotch bottles from her bag, he decides to play a little payback. So he says to Alex, “Can you believe they moved their bedroom from the second floor to the first floor only because the second floor is far too inconvenient to go up for their one certain activity, on the premise of Jeju can actually fly?”

“Argh!” Alex lifts her chin up and groans.

“Leo!” Lori shouts from the other side of the apartment.

Kara ducks her head with the color on her cheek reddened deeper.

Lena only freezes for a moment, she thinks silently, _being efficient is my style_. “Unfortunately, I won’t be ashamed of my healthy sexual behavior and something I haven’t done yet,” pushing one Scotch bottle towards Alex, she says with a smirk, “You might need more of it tonight.”


	5. bonding part Ⅱ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> continue the girls night

Alex picks up the bottle and pours herself a solid amount of liquor to get through the night, she thinks, _Fortunately, there is someone in the family who appreciates the good stuff._ Glaring at Lena, she mocks, “I didn’t pay for it anyway, and you owe me this, Mrs. Luthor-Danvers.”

The hyphenated name makes Lena and Kara look at each other subconsciously. Putting jokes aside, Luthor-Danvers name is growing on Lena since she spent time with the two unexpected visitors from yesterday, it feels surprisingly right like a puzzle is completed by finding the last missing piece out of nowhere. The expectation of a loving family and an energetic wife makes Lena bite her lower lip bashfully.

Most part of Kara’s brain stops functioning at the sight of the brunette biting her lip, the remaining part of her brain that is still working tenaciously controls her facial muscles putting on a goofy smile while praising, _she is so adorable, look at those lips_ … (If Kara’s thought could be visualized, there would be tons of placards with LIPS written on it appearing successively around her head.)

Sensing hormone emitting in the air, the corner of Alex’s mouth twitches a little. she sighs while titling the bottle harder for more liquor and praying Maggie would be here soon to keep the gayness in this room under control.

Then, Lori exclaims from the couch with holding Alex’s phone in her hand, “Aunt Alex, Maggs just sent you a text.”

Alex thinks the text is just Maggie informing about her upcoming arrival, besides, she has no energy for a detour without alcohol in her system first, so she says, “Can you read it for me?”

“Okay, what’s your pin?”

“0329.”

Lori’s melts, “Aww, it’s Maggs’s birthday.” Then she unlocks the phone, goes through the text before speaking up, “You sure you want me to read?” her voice full of unrestrained amusement.

“Yep.”

Lori clears her throat dramatically, “Okay, here it goes. Look into your eyes, glinting with star light, you and I, how about having sex tonight, eye emoji, peach emoji. Oh, and she is downstairs now.”

There is a two seconds’ dead silence after Lori finishes, then everyone except Alex bursts into laughter, Leo even bends over in tears, he tries his best to piece together his words coherently, “I can’t believe I just heard Maggs’s sext, it's so hilarious, I’m gonna tell her after I get back!”

Lori can’t stop her chortle, her laughter even sounds like hog grunt at one point, “She is gonna throw you into jail!”

Leo shouts back, “Totally worth it!”

“Shit,” embarrassment thick in Alex’s throat, the sext thing is a method Maggie recently came up to reduce the stress of wedding planning and it works efficiently. She drops the bottle, then rushes to her phone. She snatches her phone from Lori’s hand, but the impact of running knocks her off balance and makes her end up with lying on her stomach one Lori’s laps.

Lori pats Alex’s shoulder blade amusedly, thinking, _Watching Aunt Alex being flustered is a bonus._ Hearing her aunt grunting, she says delightfully, “Gay down.”

Alex pushes herself up to sit properly beside Lori, “It’s a good thing that I won’t remember this,” not sure it’s a statement of fact or an attempt to console herself.

Lori just hums knowingly.

There is a knock on the door, everyone instantly knows it’s the poet of tonight.

Meeting Maggie gets Leo excited, he asks Kara expectantly, “Can I get it?” He strides towards the door after receiving his Jeju’s nod in response, he opens the door with an enthusiastic greeting, “Hi! Glinting eyes!”

Maggie is startled by the strange man who grins broadly at her at first, the realization of who this man is suddenly dawns on her when the familiar apartment comes into sight, she says, “Hey, finally got the honor to meet the famous son of Luth—” Another realization hits her like a lightning before she finishes her sentence, _What did he call me?_ She tilts her body to look into the apartment with eyes widen, “Danvers!” she shouts while blushing, voice full of warning.

Alex thought hearing about her sister’s sex life is terrible enough but hearing her fiancee’s _you are in trouble_ tone that she hasn’t heard for a long time is worse, she promptly defends herself, “I swear it was an accident!”

Had his fun that he is content with, Leo says, “I testify it really was,” gesturing behind him, “Come in, let me grab you a beer.”

Maggie shrugs nonchalantly before walking into the kitchen. She takes a swig of the beer Leo handed to her while eyeing Kara and Lena getting their own wine with avoiding eye contact deliberately, detecting lingering chemistry between Kara and Lena, she teases with raising her bottle, “Congrats to our future newlyweds.”

Kara looks up at Maggie with no idea of how to respond, her mouth opening and closing, “Uh, ah, thanks?”

Hearing Kara’s response, Lena rejoices at the observation that Lori and Leo don’t seem to inherit the Kryptonian’s clumsiness. She looks at Maggie, her lips curved up in a soft grin, “You and Alex are the future newlyweds we should celebrate today,” a glimmer of retaliation flashing through her eyes, “To our gay detector,” raising her glass too.

The awareness of no messing with the Luthors comes to Maggie’s mind, she should’ve known that this Luthor would sting back before you know it. But the sincere blessing in Lena’s voice and happiness for her marriage showing on Lena’s face warms her so she is delighted to play along, she turns her head to look at Lori and shouts, “Hey! Hybrid Danvers, can’t you keep my family title secret,” pretending to be upset.

“Sorry, no secrets in this family,” Lori retorts loudly without a hint of regret, “Since everyone is here, can we please start eating now?” she pleads with tangible hunger in her voice like she hasn't eaten all day.

Leo quickly picks up a beer for himself and a cola for Lori in one hand, and the bag of take-out in the other hand before opening his arms to motion for three women in the kitchen to move towards the living room, he urges, “Everyone grab your drink and hurry up before Lori gets whiny.” Three women comply at the threat, the whole scene looks like a shepherd dog supervises a flock of sheep moving towards the fence.

Seeing them coming, Lori gets up to leave her seat to Maggie and goes to sit on the floor between two club chairs that are opposite the couch. “Mom, Jeju, come here!” she turns to look at her two moms expectantly while patting the cushions of two club chairs behind her.

Normally, Lena won’t be bossed around by anyone but the glitter in Lori’s eyes makes her unable to refuse any request from Lori. She takes the club chair to Lori’s left obediently with a smile, leaning forward to put her glass on the coffee table while looking at Lori with raising one eyebrow, “You do realize I’m not a dog, right?” she jokes.

Lori shrugs, “You did it anyway.”

Lena giggles, pinching Lori’s cheek fondly, “I appreciate your taunting skill,” she says with unstrained affection twinkling in her eyes.

Lori leans to bump Lena’s calf with her shoulder, “Again, I got it from you.”

Kara’s eyes are trained on the mother and the daughter with pure adoration after sitting on the other chair, a bubble made of satisfaction expanding from her heart surrounds her robustly which makes her feel she can conquer anything with it. Her attention fixes on their interaction so concentratedly that she fails to notice the back of her head is screaming, _I want this!_

Leo sits to Lori’s right after putting take-out on the coffee table, shoving Lori away from the middle with his body, “It’s not fair you occupy two moms like this!” Struggled to get the position he regards as fair with Lori’s feeble resistance, he sighs contentedly, “Much better.”

Kara couldn’t resist the urge to join the fight-for-justice game, she moves to sit next to Leo before starting to shove Leo and Lori aside easily with her superstrength which makes two children grumble for complaint.

“Jeju, you’re crashing me!” Leo protests exaggeratedly.

Kara keeps moving, “Knock it off, I know how to control my power.”

Lori knows to ask for help, turning to look at Lena with indignation on her face, “Mom, Jeju is bullying us!”

Lena knows better than to take a side, she picks up her glass to drink to keep this mess out of sight, she murmurs, “At least they didn’t get this from me.”

Looking at the Luthor-Danverses in front of her with a dimple-showing smile, Maggie comments, “They’re a family for sure.”

Alex is nursing her Scotch so she echoes in agreement, “Hmm.”

Maggie turns to look at Alex, her attention is drew by the water stain on Alex’s shirt, pointing at the stain, she asks, “What happened?”

This question almost makes Alex choke on her Scotch, she makes an effort to avoid to answer the question by coughing, hoping someone would come to her rescue. After an invalid attempt, she says with a grimace, “It was another accident.”

Maggie’s detective instinct yells, _once is coincidence, twice is intention._ She darts a suspicious look at the Luthor-Danverses who are burying their heads in plates simultaneously, she has an epiphany that they are the culprits so she decides to interrogate by breaking the weak link, “Hey, Boy Danvers,” she starts.

Leo looks up blankly from his food like a deer caught in headlight, “Yeah?”

Maggie tries to be casual, “When will Lena and Kara get married?”

“2021,” Leo answers, “Everyone at the wedding cried, especially Jeju,” looking at Kara, jabs her arm with his elbow, “You barely finished your vow with sobbing, but I think mom found you cute even you were crying ungracefully, she kissed you with a bright smile that could power the whole National City.”

Kara shots Lena who is concentrating on Leo’s description with a soft grin a discreet glance, Leo’s voice becomes a background sound when she hears the word _kissed_ , her eyes voluntarily trace from Lena’s sentimental eyes to her perfectly curved lips, down to her slender neck. She regretfully looks away when her view is blocked by Lena’s inopportunely present button on her blouse, she goes back to feed her stomach after feeding her eyes.

Lena, of course, caught Kara staring at her (in fact, everyone caught Kara staring, Leo and Lori are used to it long time ago so they wouldn’t brother to point it out, Alex doesn’t want to suffer anymore so she ignores it, Maggie is having fun that she wants it to last longer.) But Lena doesn’t expose Kara’s non-platonic behavior, conversely, she pretends to fix her collar, tagging it apart a bit to show more skin, a little flirt won’t hurt right?

Leo continues, “If you could make through their wedding video to the dance part,” rolling his eyes, “You would find they get… handsy.”

Lori is impervious to Leo’s words for her main focus is on food.

Lena and Kara act like they are not the protagonists of the story, both hide their faces in their glasses.

Alex looks at Maggie helplessly with a painful expression that conveys her emotion accurately.

Maggie immediately understands how the accident happened, _one case solved, one more to go_ , she thinks to herself. “Lori, are you seeing anyone?” she asks.

Lori looks at Maggie with mouthful food in her mouth, swallowing food mechanically before speaking, “No—.” Hearing Leo clearing his throat, she modifies her answer, “No-not exactly? We are… friends for now,” she stutters.

 _An ambiguous testimony_ , Maggie attempts, “How did you meet her?”

“We are taking a same course at MIT,” Lori answers truthfully.

Maggie lifts her chin at Alex triumphantly, sending a message, _Ha, I knew it!_

Alex glares at Maggie respectfully.

Kara leans back, looking at Lori expectantly, “Tell us more!”

Lori blushes.

Lena cuts in, “Leave her alone,” shooting a CEO glance at Kara and Maggie.

Maggie raises her hands in surrender playfully, she changes her target, looking at Leo, “Leo, how about you? Seeing anyone?”

Leo knows Maggie well enough so that he understands Maggie’s true intention, grinning from ear to ear, he answers, “I’m bisexual, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Maggie locks her gaze on Leo, deepening her smile, “Well, I’d like to make a toast,” raising her bottle, “To the rainbow.”

Leo chuckles, raising his bottle to level with Maggie’s, he says, “To the family.”

The rest of the group raise their drink at Leo’s toast with a smile, they celebrates in unison, “To the family.”

As the night unfolding merrily, everyone gets tipsy except the one and half Kryptonians because of Kara’s nonhuman metabolism and Lori’s distaste for alcohol. Lori picked up Lena’s glass to try some wine which only ended up with a disgusted grimace and a grumble, “I really don’t understand why you like alcohol, it tastes awful, I’ll still stick to my cola,” she said to Lena.

But most of the family do like alcohol, take Leo and Maggie as an example who are totally wasted now, they would giggle unstoppably if you tell them the sun is round, how did this happen? Leo moved to Maggie’s side after he stuffed himself, nobody knows when did they start to play the Never Have I Ever drinking game, Leo has unequally more information but Maggie is tactful enough to trick Leo so they tied in this game, and they both have the same consciousness of taking games seriously.

Alex quit the game after a few rounds because someone have to be sober to get them home, so she is sitting next to Lori on the floor now, asking about things in the future that interests her. She even gave Lori some advice on how to get the girl you like which Lori was skeptical about based on the first advice that _kiss the girl before she reacts._ Besides, Lori knows who is the best person to ask for advice, it’s Lena without a shadow of doubt.

Kara pulled Lena to sit on the floor in front of the TV to watch the first movie of Toy Story, there was a normal friendly distance between the two at the beginning, Lena gradually closed their distance because the heat radiating from the Kryptonian was too warm to decline and she was too drunk to think straight (at least that was what she told herself.) and Kara was more than happy to stay close to Lena. Now, Kara sits with her legs straightened and both hands on the floor supporting her reclining body, Lena sits cross-legged with her forearms resting loosely on her laps and her head resting on Kara’s shoulder.

“To infinity and beyond!” Kara follows Buzz Lightyear on the screen.

“This is nice,” Lena mutters with a soft voice, not sure she is talking about the movie or their position, or both.

Kara is oblivious as always, she turns to look at Lena with a complacent smile, “Told you it’s funny,” of course she thought Lena was talking about the movie.

Lena tilts her head back without leaving Kara’s shoulder, nailing her eyes to Kara’s sapphire eyes, she chuckles, “It is.”

Lena’s breath wafts through Kara’s face, carrying the aroma of her perfume and alcohol, it’s so intoxicating that Kara is stunned in amazement. Kara has never observed Lena’s eyes this close so she locks her gaze on the emerald eyes spontaneously, the more she looks the more she feels that there is an irresistible power in Lena’s eyes that draws her towards the brunette, she can't help leaning in to look more closely. With Lena’s eyes keep zooming in her view, Kara forgets to breath when she clearly sees Lena’s pupils dilated because of their close proximity, she suddenly realizes that she is about to kiss Lena. Sensing Lena doesn’t flinch away, she flickers her eyes to Lena’s lips and keeps leaning in. Just when the tip of her nose touches Lena’s breath, she hears Lena whispering her name, “Kara…”

 _“I don’t think now is a good time to pursue anything between us”_ What Lena said to her yesterday echoing loudly in her head, Kara stops, leaning back in a fluster, she says in a husky voice, “I.. I’ll get you more wine,” preparing to get up.

Lena quickly presses a hand on Kara’s thigh, “No, I didn’t mean—” screwing her eyes shut, evening out her breath, “I—I don’t want more wine,” looking at Kara frustratedly with knowing the moment has passed, she says, “Can we stay like this?”

Kara relaxes, nodding with a weak smile. She wraps one arm around Lena’s waist, pulling the brunette closer, “Is this okay?” she asks hesitantly.

Lena snuggles her head on Kara’s chest, rubbing her forehead against the crook of the blonde’s neck to find a comfortable spot, puffing out a breath, she mumbles, “It’s more than okay.”

Getting Lena’s assurance, Kara sighs in relief, resting her temple on top of Lena’s head, immersing herself in the brunette’s companion.

“I can’t believe this,” Lori groans in disbelief, gesturing to her moms in front of her with palms up, she says to Alex with eyes popping out, “How come she didn’t kiss her! Normally, they looking at each other for more than five seconds is my cue to leave.”

“Ha! I win!” Alex slaps Lori’s thigh excitedly, “I knew Kara doesn’t have the nerve to kiss Lena.” Pointing a cup on the coffee table with a little beer in it, Alex demands, “Drink!”

Apparently they watched Kara and Lena’s failing kiss like watching a romantic drama and made a bet on in.

Reluctantly picking up the cup and drinking the beer in one gulp with a frown, Lori pouts, “It’s no fun.”

“I decided!” Maggie exclaims on the couch, drawing everyone’s attention, her index finger pointing against Leo’s chest, “You are my bro from now on,” she says in a drawling tone, patting her own chest, “I got your back,” she adds emphatically.

Leo is deeply moved by Maggie’s promise, stumbles to hug Maggie, hanging his jaw on his aunt’s shoulder, he feels like crying, “Bro!”

Maggie wraps her arms around Leo’s shoulder, squeezing him fondly, she reiterates, “Bro.”

Watching the two’s silly antics, Alex exchanges a look with Lori, she gasps, “How much did they drink?”

Looking at piles of empty beer bottles around them, Lori says, “They’re gonna have a terrible hangover tomorrow.”

Amusement gleaming in Lena’s eyes, looking at Kara, “It looks like Leo fits in just fine, he made a new friend in no time,” she jokes.

Kara beams with smile, shaking her head, “It looks like you got a drunk kid to deal with.”

Lena frowns, feigning being indignant, shoving Kara’s side, “He is your kid too, you can’t run away from this situation.”

Kara bursts into laughter, tilting her head to the side, “Okay, I will fly him to your place.”

Lena hums, making a gesture of _please_ at Kara.

Kara walks to the two who can’t bear to part from each other, patting Leo’s shoulder to get his attention, she coaxes, “Leo, can you let your bro go?”

Leo turns to to see who patted him, finding it’s Kara, he yells, “Jeju!”

Laughing at Leo’s enthusiasm, Kara looks into Leo’s eyes, “Good to know you can still recognize me.”

Leo giggles, wrapping his arms around Kara’s wrist and resting his chin on Kara’s abdomen, looking at his Jeju, “Can you be my bro too?” he pleads naively.

Kara is surprised by Leo’s action at first but seeing affection blinking dazzlingly in his eyes, she softens, ruffling his hair with an indulgent smile, she agrees, “I’d love to.”

Kara response makes Leo wear a goofy smile.

Kara continues, “I’m gonna pick you up, okay?”

“Yes! Please.”

Kara bends down, putting one arm under Leo’s thighs and the other arm around Leo’s shoulder, carrying him up easily, she whispers, “Let’s go home.”

Tucking his head on Kara’s shoulder, “I AM home,” Leo mumbles before he falls asleep.

“Earth to mom.”

Lena watches them so intently that she didn't notice Lori coming over until Lori calls her, turning to look at Lori, “Yes?”

“Need a lift home?”

“You mean by flying?”

Lori shrugs, “It’s the fastest way.”

Lena doesn’t like flying, even on a plane but the invitation of flying with Lori is too appealing to turn down, so she comes up to Lori, putting one arm around Lori’s neck, she warns, “Don’t drop me.”

Cradling her mom in her arms before walking towards the open floor-to-ceiling window to catch up with Kara, Lori promises, “Never.”

Standing by the window, Kara sees Alex struggling with supporting Maggie’s weight by fixing one arm around Maggie’s waist, she starts, “Alex, I’ll come back soon—”

Alex waves Kara off, “I got this, you go ahead.”

Kara nods. Seeing Lori carrying Lena and walking towards her, Kara cautions again, “Don’t draw any unnecessary attention.”

Lori says nonchalantly, “It’s late, no one would notice us.”

“Nonetheless—”

“Race ya!” Lori challenges before flying out of the window.

“NO!” Lena and Kara shout at the same time.

_LENA LUTHOR’S PENTHOUSE_

Kara walks towards Lena who is waiting for her on the balcony after settling Leo in bed, Lori went back to her room not long ago to leave space for her parents. Standing in front of Lena, Kara says, “I’ll come to check on Leo tomorrow morning.”

Lena nods in response with smiling tenderly. She takes a step closer to Kara, reaching out one hand to tuck a loose strand of Kara’s hair behind the blonde’s ear before cupping Kara’s cheek, she says, “Fly safe.”

Kara says nothing only titles her head to feel more of Lena’s touch with keeping their eye contact. They stay like this for a while.

Lena withdraws her hand first, “Good night,” she says.

“Good night,” Kara responds before taking off. She definitely makes some aerial stunts on her way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason I set supercorp getting married in 2021 was that I was manifesting supercorp endgame next year.
> 
> And angst is on the way.


	6. mom is missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> angst is approaching but domestic fluff first

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the opening scene was describing a gif of Katie I saw on tumblr (if you know which gif I was talking about, I want to say it totally destroyed me.)

Lens wakes up before her alarm goes off out of habit, lying on her king-size bed, she stretches lazily with a soft smile on her face, everything around her seems lighter this morning even with the knowledge that there are amounts of monotonous paperwork waiting for her on her desk, her life is expectant somehow. She gets out of bed without procrastination and puts on a black silk robe over her thin nightgown before stepping out of her room.

Brushing out hair tucked under the robe with the back of her hand while walking through the passage, she hears Lori’s voice coming from the kitchen.

“On a scale of one to ten, how do you think of my pancake?”

“You are making pancakes? I have to—” Lena’s words hang in the air when she sees Kara sitting on a stool by the island with a knife and fork in hand who is looking at her with mouth agape. She didn't expect Kara to come this early but she isn’t complaining. Holding Kara’s gaze, she greets, “Hi, Kara.”

Kara finds Lena is glowing breathtakingly in the morning light, her eyes flick up and down at Lena at their own will, “Mo… morning,” she stutters.

Lori is standing in the kitchen, she waves the spatula on her hand at Lena excitedly, “Mom! Come try my special pancake.”

Lena darts a fond look at Lori who obviously devoted lots of energy to pancakes with hair tied in a loose bun and sleeves rolled up. Taking the seat next to Kara, she says, “How special it is?”

Lori says nothing only gives a noncommittal shrug that sends the message of _you will see_ before serving Lena a plate of pancakes.

Looking at Kara again, Lena asks, “So what’s your rating?”

“Ah?” Kara drags her eyes back to meet Lena’s, reviewing Lena’s question in her head, “Oh, a big ten,” she says solemnly. No one knows it’s the pancake or Lena she is talking about.

Lena hums, “Intriguing.”

She looks at Lori with a surprised expression after taking a bite, pointing her plate with her fork, “It’s utterly good, I’d give you a one hundred! What’s in it?”

Lori sets her jaw in a triumphant way, and smiling, “Love.”

Lena quirks up an eyebrow in challenge.

Lori knows this look so well because Lena would look at her and Leo with it every time they got into mischief that mostly led by her when they were kids, they would scramble to come clean when Lena put on this look so there were some disgraceful shirking responsibility and mutual blame which would only make their mom frown disapprovingly. But they groped a way to dissolve their mom through experiments, which is acting cutesy and apologizing while hugging her. A pang of nostalgia washes over her, pretending to be reluctant to leak her special recipe, “But literally, coconut oil and chocolate chip.”

Lena chuckles at Lori’s display of childishness, another question comes to her mind, “But I don’t have either of those in my kitchen,” she says confusedly.

“Jeju and I went to the grocery store earlier,” Lori explains, staring at her mom intensely, “You need to take care of yourself by eating regularly so we stuffed your fridge, and I prepared this for you,” turning around to pick up a mug from the countertop, she hands it to Lena, “Pour-over coffee.”

“Thank you,” Lena takes over the mug before looking over Lori’s shoulder, seeing there are a ceramic dripper and a range server glass pot that she bought long ago but forgotten in the cabinet sitting on the countertop, she says amazedly, “You really know how to enjoy food.”

“If you really love something, be good at doing it,” Lori winks at Lena, “That’s what you said.”

“You know mom might be referring to Jeju, right? She was drunk on their anniversary when she said it,” Leo appears on the far end of the island with wet hair matted together and only a bath towel wrapped around his waist.

Lori scratches her forehead dejectedly, she forgets Leo plus alcohol equals her suffering. Glaring at Leo, she admonishes, “Great, you totally ruined it for me, and can’t you put a shirt on?”

Leo shoots back, “Not before I show them my tattoo!” He quickly turns around, pointing at the tattoo on his lower back, “Mom, Jeju, look.”

Lena sees the tattoo is a line of black-inked symbols arranged closely that almost extends as wide as his waist, she recognizes it’s Kryptonese because of Lex’s previous obsessive research on Superman but she doesn’t understand it. She nudges Kara’s arm and asks, “What does it mean?”

Kara smiles as soon as she lay eyes on Leo’s tattoo, she’s astonished at seeing her future kid having a tattoo inked in her first language, there is something she can’t quite divine rolling in her chest. Turning to look at Lena and widening her smile, she answers, “The closest English words are family member.”

Lena melts at Kara’s answer, looking back at Leo’s tattoo, the corners of her mouth curls up spontaneously.

Leo turns around, “Mom, you and I got this identical tattoo on the same spot on my eighteenth birthday,” tilting his head towards Lori and smiling smugly, “Someone is jealous of it all the time.”

Lori refuses to admit the disadvantage of her invincibility, she insists stubbornly, “I told you like a thousand times, I’m not jealous.”

Lena exchanges a knowing look Kara, both of them beaming with smiles. She chimes in, “I guess it’s one of the perks of being human in the family.”

“Exactly!” Leo steps forward and raises one hand to high-five with Lena.

Lena cooperates cheerfully.

Kara raises her hand, inviting, “I want one too, bring it in!” She intertwines Leo’s fingers and pulls him closer after clapping his hand, “I love it, it’s super cool.”

Leo just smiles proudly.

Squinting at Leo, Lori comments, “It’s low, even for you.”

Leo retorts, “You made your special pancake for them, I have to play dirty to compete with you.” He leans to peck Kara’s temple while looking at Lori provocatively, “Thanks for bringing me aspirin, Jeju.” He and Lori aren’t around two moms as before after they went to college, so they would put on a show of competing for moms’ attention tacitly to entertain their moms when they get home, their act would quickly turn sentiment into laughter, somehow, they can’t help doing it now.

Sensing Lori is at a disadvantage, Kara has a sudden urge to do her daughter justice, so she teases, “I think having a hangover definitely isn’t one of the perks of being human in the family.”

“Right on! I knew you are on my side.” Lori endorses wholeheartedly, leaning forward to give her Jeju a high-five over the island. Apparently, the Kryptonian alliance is forming. 

Lena shakes her head amusedly at Kara’s moral support resulted in fanning the flames, but why not add fuel to the fire to have more fun? She shifts the focus to the previous topic that is beneficial to the human alliance, “I think the tattoo would look good on me.”

The image of Lena having a Kryptonese tattoo on her lower back emerges vividly in Kara’s mind right now, it hits different, like life-changing different. She takes Lena’s side willingly, “For the record, I would use the word great.”

Kara’s compliment earns herself a lopsided smile and a mouthed _thank you_ from Lena. Unsurprisingly, the Kryptonian alliance collapsed before it became solid.

Lori rolls her eyes at her Jeju’s betray, then she goes back to flip her pancakes. “Go get dressed, I’ll make more pancakes for you,” she addresses Leo in an indifferent tone but the smile on her face tells the opposite.

At the temptation of Lori’s pancake that he hasn’t had for a long time, “You’re the best,” Leo sings with jerking both thumbs up at Lori before sashaying away.

Bathing in the blessed pleasure of their presence, Lena perceives easiness and joy have taken up residence in her heart, she wishes this peep of her future hovering before her eyes isn’t just something that can only be seen but never reach like a mirage of an oasis in the desert. Besides, she had so much fun spending a day with Leo in the lab yesterday, they had coffee and even some small talk during their break that she used to think as unnecessary and wasting of time, and the best part about was that they made some gizmos together. Thinking of this, a flicker of excitement crosses her face, getting up from the seat, “I made something for you two, wait here,” she says with holding up two index fingers, then she disappears to her bedroom.

Kara looks at Lori expectantly like a child opening a Christmas present, “What do you think it will be?” raising one hand to cup her chin, staring into the void, she assumes, “A weapon?”

Lori turns around, mimicking her Jeju’s posture, “An upgrade to your suit?”

“A device that can update me on the emergency?”

“A robot that can fold clothes?”

Kara straightens up, “Ha! I just thought of something better!” seeing Lori waiting for her theory expectantly, she lowers her voice, “A year free supply of potstickers.”

The corner of Lori’s eyes twitches a little, she isn’t surprised at her Jeju’s answer at all but how come someone holds enthusiasm for the same food for decades. Leaning in to get close to Kara, she says, “Spoil alert, you got that for your thirtieth birthday. As a matter of fact, you got yourself a lifetime supply of potstickers by marry—”

“Are you two plotting something?” Leo’s voice interrupts their conversation. Taking the seat on Kara’s other side, he declares, “Whatever you are planning, count me in.”

Kara denies, “No, we’re not plotting anything, we’re just chatting.”

“About?”

“Uuh, something Lena made for us.”

Leo deflates at the nonexistence of conspiracy, “Oh, just some gadgets mom and I made yesterday, no biggie.”

Lena returns with two leather strap watches in her hands. She hands Lori and Kara each a watch and says, “Since being transmitted here without phones and someone,” pausing to shoot a glance at Leo, “Insisted on having fun with handcraft, so we made all of us an electronic watch as a temporary communication tool.”

Leo continues to demonstrate, “It can call, text, and send locations with showing hologram through voice control, and it’s solar-powered like Jeju so no need for charge, and I,” raising his hand to show off his watch, “Am gonna take it back as a souvenir.”

Putting on the watch and poking the round watch dial, Kara marvels at the symbol of The House of El lighting up in the center, “Wow, this is amazing,” looking up at Lena with her puppy smile, “You are amazing, thank you.”

A flash of pink climbs up Lena’s cheeks, waving one hand, she says, “It’s nothing, the symbol is Leo’s idea, I’m glad you like it.”

Lori fiddles with her watch, scrutinizing it with interest. After having the satisfaction of observation, she pokes fun at Leo, “Based on the premise that you helped to make the watch, I hope it will work normally.”

“Are you questioning my technology?” Lena is the first one to respond, feigning a scowl, “Theoretically, it will work perfectly even on the moon.”

“How dare you,” Leo echos.

Kara preserves Lena’s reputation at all cost, glaring at Lori, “You take it back.”

Lori widens her eyes at the whole family turning against her, swallowing incredibility gnawing at her throat, knowing arguing with her mom is a losing battle, she admits her defeat, “Okay,” taking off her imaginary hat to put it on her chest and bowing, “Miss Luthor, my sincere apologies.”

Everyone bursts into laughter at Lori’s parody. Having someone indulge her is a new experience for Lena which she shamelessly doesn’t mind having more. After the laughter dies down, she rubs her hands together, looking at her family, she asks, “So, we still split up like yesterday?”

Lori answers in haste, “Yes, Aunt Alex and I agreed on a spar yesterday, given that she’s always been claiming that she was more flexible when she was younger, I’d like to test out her theory.”

Kara chuckles, “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I’m warning you, she’s kicked my butt once, so you’d better not underestimate her.”

Lori crosses her arms, “Huh, just once? That’s not what I heard.”

Lori’s remark arouses the fighting spirit in Kara, she pretends to be casual to show a head-on blow at their first encounter, “In that case, I can teach you a move or two after you finish with Alex.”

Lori takes it as a challenge, “Oh, Supergirl, game on.” Can’t wait to show off her combat skill, she urges, “C’mon, Jeju, let’s go now.”

Kara replies, “You have the same patience as Alex, which is none.” Nevertheless, she still stands up from the seat to follow Lori out.

“Mom! Wear your watch too, it’s a Luthor-Danvers thing now,” Lori exclaims at halfway, “And see you guys at dinner.”

Lena complies, “Will do.”

Leo grumbles, “I guess I have to make pancakes by myself.”

Facing Leo, Lena purses her lips, “It’s just you and me again, what’s in your mind today?”

Leo slumps his shoulders, “Actually, I’m still a little dizzy now, can I catch you up at lunch?”

“You really can’t miss a meal.”

“Isn’t it exactly what travel for?”

_TRAINING ROOM, DEO_

Kryptonite emitters are activated, green light gleaming faintly behind the pillars on the wall. Kara is in her Supergirl suit, leaning on the frame of the entrance with arms crossed, the frown on her face suggests she is more nervous than Alex and Lori who are stretching their limbs to warm up on the octagon platform.

Twisting her neck, Alex starts, “You know, I can lower the intensity of Kryptonite emitter to make it a fair fight if you want,” staring at Lori provocatively, “I don't want you to complain later that I took advantage of you.”

“Nah, I don’t want to hurt you,” Lori dismisses, making a derisive grimace at Alex, “Or weep over your bound defeat to Maggs later.”

Alex raises an eyebrow, “Ha, I hope your punches are as good as your inexplicable confidence.”

“You’ll see.”

Kara laughs heartily, her tension is swept away by the two’s sneer and retort which seem to be more exciting than the following spar. She steps in, “Okay, no more big talks,” glaring at the two, she emphasizes, “This is just a training, you stop at where it should, one win by ringing out the opponent or the opponent throwing in the towel, okay?”

Lori grins at her Jeju, “Okay.”

Alex shrugs, “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on her.”

Lori disapproves, “Meh, do your best.”

Alex lets out a murmur of appreciative laughter, “Okay, If you insist.”

Lori raises her hands to fist position, “Bring it!”

Alex squares away too.

Lori bobs while pressing toward Alex, when she approaches close enough, she throws a tentative straight right punch which Alex swerves easily.

Alex steps back with nimble footwork, circling in a decoy movement, she comments, “I think your fundamental blow is okay.”

Lori snorts, “Just okay? You should see my kick then.” She rotates her body rapidly and jumps up on one foot, utilizing the inertia to strike a powerful roundhouse kick.

Alex subconsciously raises her arm to parry the blow to her side, the impact makes her stumble to the side but she recovers quickly.

Lori says smugly, “How do you think of that?”

Making a shoulder rotation stretch, Alex answers, “Better than I expected.”

“I hope you’re not using the rope-a-dope strategy, just a heads up for you, I can do this all day even with Kryptonite emitter on.”

Alex shoots back, “Not after I knock you to the ground!”

She jerks forward to deliver a flat hook, Lori ducks to avoid it but Alex has anticipated Lori’s action so a solar plexus punch follows in succession. Lori guards with an elbow block and promptly straightens up to fight back with a combination facer.

Alex sways back, blocking with her forearms while observing the speed of the opponent's punch. She accurately grasps a gap between Lori's punch, taking a step back and engaging core muscle strength to stabilize her body. She grabs Lori's oncoming right wrist firmly with both hands and tilts her upper body swiftly to the left, using physical strength to twist Lori’s wrist outwards.

Lori gets down on her knee at the pain, but enduring the pain, she stretches her left hand to grab the front of Alex’s sport jacket and falls backward. At the process of her movement, she kicks Alex in the abdomen, making Alex flip in the air and land on her back. Both of them lying on the ground head-to-head, panting at the pain.

Alex rolls over and props herself up, posing on guard, she sounds out, “Yield?”

Lori huffs in exasperation, “Not even close.” Standing up then dashing forward, she makes a jumping front kick when Alex is within attack range, which forces Alex to defend herself with cross parry. Subsequently, she makes a back spinning kick that successfully hits Alex in the waist.

Alex collapses to the ground, being fully aware that Lori is stronger than her. Knowing that she needs to play it smart to win, a tactic arises in her head owing to her years of tactical experience. Pushing herself to her feet, she sways to near Lori, pretending her intention is to lunch a close-quarter fight. And Lori takes the bait, she steps up to confront Alex’s attack head-on with a round-arm blow, which is only a miss blow because Alex makes a body feint to dodge the attack in time.

To implement her counterattack, Alex squats down and makes a sweep leg that manages to throw Lori to the ground face-down. Seizing the well-planned opportunity, she turns around with one hand supporting on the ground to straddle Lori’s back, threads her right arm around Lori’s neck and grabs her left elbow to tighten her grip with left forearm pressing against the back of Lori’s head, forming a stranglehold. Clamping Lori’s body with her legs, she rolls over swimmingly and crosses her legs to complete the rare naked choke. 

Having difficulty in breathing, Lori struggles to loosen Alex’s grip.

Alex crows over her success, “There is no way you can get away with it, it’s time to yield.”

Lori groans out a replay, “Not necessarily.” She closes her eyes, trying to concentrate on the energy in her body. After feeling energy fluctuating in her body, she declares, “Take this!” She draws on a measured burst of energy and creates a blast wave.

The energy wave radiates from Lori’s body sends Alex flying out of the platform. Alex hits the wall on her back then bounces to the ground, the impact eventually makes her lie on her stomach, engulfed in pain.

Kara rushes to Alex when she catches on what just happened, she squats beside her sister and asks with concern, “Alex, are you okay?”

Alex responds weakly, “Aah, not dead yet.”

Lori hurries to her aunt’s side, “Aunt Alex, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Striving to extend her muscles, Alex grumbles, “Can you guys help me up?”

Kara and Lori take each of Alex’s arm and pick the-physically-and-emotionally-wounded to her feet together.

Leaning against Kara, Alex turns to look at Lori, “What was that? I’ve never seen Kara done anything like that before.”

Lori gestures to move Alex to the edge of the platform to let her sit down, “You take a rest first.” After settling Alex down, she continues, “I call it Super Blast, it’s a simplified version of Super Flare I explored, but apparently, I have to practice more to master it.”

Kara asks, “What’s Super Flare? How to use it?”

“Super Flare is a gigantic heat blast that utilizes all the yellow sun radiation within cells at once, you used it once in a battle,” seeing her Jeju itching for a try, “But it will drain all stored solar energy in your cells so you’ll be solar flared, give or take twenty-four hours until you recharge your cells with solar energy, so don’t try it unless it’s urgent.”

“Alas, sounds so cool,” Kara deflates.

“But I can show you how to do Super Blast, it won’t drain your energy, but we need to find an open space to practice it,” Lori adds mischievously, “And with a lot of donuts and lattes.”

Kara beams at Lori, “Deal.”

Alex says sullenly, “It’s rude to make a plan in front of me and not invent me.”

Lori titters, “Of course you are invented,” pausing to put on a teasing smile, “Loser.”

Alex defends herself at once, “Hey! We agreed on a fair spar but you cheated with your superpower, so I won.”

“Okay, if it would make you feel better.”

Lori’s remark has Kara in stitches, shaking her head, she says, “I have to say you did pretty good up here, who taught you how to fight?”

“Mostly Aunt Alex, you and Maggs occasionally.”

Kara offers, “Wanna exchange some blows with me?”

Lori accepts the challenge with pleasure, “Sure, what’s the rule?”

A voice cuts in at this time, “Agent Danvers!”

Everyone turns to look at the direction of the sound, they see Agent Vasquez approaching with a tablet in hand.

Alex stands up, “What’s wrong?”

“We detained an unauthorized man who was looking for you and Supergirl downstairs, we can’t identify him with our facial recognition system and I had an analyst run his DNA, which is also not in our database,” Agent Vasquez hands the tablet to Alex, “So I think I should report this to you.”

Seeing the mugshot showing on the tablet, Alex shouts, “Leo?”

Kara sees it too, widening her eyes, she asks Agent Vasquez in disbelief, “Where did you detain him?”

Agent Vasquez hesitates, “Uh… In block D.”

“Oh Rao, c’mon Alex, we need to get him out,” Kara wraps an arm around Alex’s waist, gesturing Lori to follow and supporting her sister walking (basically dragging) to free her son.

Alex winces in protest, “Let go of me, I can walk by myself.”

When they arrive at the cell, they see Leo pacing back and forth in anxiety.

Lori exclaims immediately, “Leo! What happened?”

Hearing Lori’s voice, Leo suddenly turns to face his family, banging the transparent shield wall with his fist loudly, “Jeju! Mom is missing!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious about Leo's tattoo, you can go check on this website: http://kryptonian.info/doyle/dictionary.html  
> just type 'family' in the English block
> 
> Some boxing terms really puzzled me.
> 
> Super Flare appeared in Supergirl (Volume 6) #7 and Super Blast was a thing I came up with.
> 
> Happy Holidays everyone!


	7. search part Ⅰ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about a slightly shorter update, I wrote several versions of what happened to Lena that I wasn’t satisfied with, so here is a version I think more logical

Alex hurries to the control panel on the wall and taps on it quickly to unlock the cell door. As soon as the door slides open, she strides to Leo who looks pale and obviously is in panic, trying to calm Leo down first, she puts her hands on each side of his neck and comforts, “Hey, hey kiddo, focus on me and breath with me, okay?”

Leo takes in a large gulp of air and nods, then closes his eyes to match Alex’s breath.

“Yes, in and out slowly, try to stay at the present,” Alex instructs softly while giving Kara and Lori who just walked to her a reassuring look.

Feeling his heartbeat gradually stabilizing, Leo puts his hands on Alex’s and gives it a squeeze, “Thank you,” he says gratefully.

“Anytime,” Alex gives him a warm smile, but being aware of the situation all along so she asks, “What do you mean Lena is missing?”

Finding the situation incredible, Lori cuts it, “Weren’t you supposed to be with her? How come she went missing?”

Leo flusters, waving a hand frustratedly, “I… I don’t know! I didn’t follow her to the lab because I was still a little dizzy this morning so we agreed to meet at lunch, but she was not there when I got to the lab.”

Kara frowns, “Is it possible she went somewhere but forgot to inform you?”

Leo shakes his head, “That’s what I thought at first, I waited for her in the lab for half an hour before realizing something was off, I tried to call her but her phone was off hence I went to Jess to ask about mom’s whereabouts,” looking at Lori for knowing her would get his point, “Even Jess doesn’t know where mom went.”

Lori bites her knuckle which is her perennial habit when she is nervous, “In this case it highly likely is a Two-Zero-Seven, we need to track mom down.”

Kara doesn’t catch on the code, “Wait, what is Two-Zero-Seven?”

“It’s a Hundred Code for kidnapping, Maggs taught us for fun,” Leo explains.

Waking up to the seriousness of the situation, Alex asks in a deep voice, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Lori nods solemnly, “Mom would never leave L-Corp without a notification to Jess during working hours, besides statistically, every time she was out of reach, she got kidnapped.”

Alex reacts immediately, “I’ll have Winn to get a ping on her.”

Kara turns to walk into the hallway that leads to the briefing room while gesturing everyone to follow, she urges, “No time to lose.”

Kara strides ahead, filling with anger at the way fate teasing her, first Krypton exploded after she got accepted to the Science Guild, then Jeremiah had to offer working for DEO in exchange for her having a normal life, not to mention she found out that her parents were not what she thought of after she became Supergirl, and as for Supergirl, she had to make the call to send Mon-el away for earth. And now, Lena, the idea that her best friend who she has feelings for and the solid guarantee of her future happiness might get kidnapped appalls her tremendously, she can’t afford a remote possibility of losing Lena too, she has to make sure she is safe even it turns out to be a false alarm.

Sensing Kara getting irritated, Alex instantly catches up with her sister and consoles, “I’ll make searching for Lena a top priority,” putting her hand on Kara’s shoulder to get Kara to look at her, she continues, “We’ll find her, but I need you to keep your head clear, okay?”

Kara sighs but nods.

Winn is looking down at his tablet when he runs into them at the end of the hallway, “Jesus,” he is startles at first, almost drops his tablet. Noticing Leo who he failed to ID is among three women, he suddenly wraps his mind around the situation. He points at Leo and says excitedly, “You’re Kara’s future son, right? That’s why I can’t ID you!” breathing a sigh of relief, “Thank god there is nothing wrong with my tech. And I’ve got to say the time travel thing is so cool, nice to—”

“Not now, Winn,” raising a hand to stop Winn from continuing, Kara says, “Now I need you to track Lena.”

“Emm?” Winn darts an inquiring look at Alex.

Alex confirms with a glare, “Now.”

“On it!” Winn hurries to his seat and gets down to his assignment immediately. Eyeing the computer screen, he mutters with forehead crinkling, “It looks like Lena has advanced her mobile security since I hacked her last time.”

Lori asks in a slightly accusatory tone, “Can you track her or not?”

Winn turns to look at the four people standing behind him, sensing the atmosphere is getting tenser, he stutters, “It… it might take a while.”

An approach flashed into Kara’s mind, “What about the watch Lena made for us?”

Leo pinches the bridge of his nose, “Negative, mom specifically made it untraceable by twisting its signal bypassing all base stations.”

“Let me try,” Lori jostles to Winn’s side and stoops to snatch the keyboard without asking, brainstorming different attempts she regards as feasible.

Every sound of tapping at the keyboard strikes Kara constantly, she clearly feels her heartbeat racing gradually and the pulse of her carotid becomes audible.

“I got something!” Lori exclaims.

Lori’s claim collects everyone to the screen. 

“I did it in an old-fashion way, sometimes an old trick works better than an advanced one.” Lori keeps tapping away at the keyboard, “I retrieved the data of as many as possible surveillance cameras around L-Corp from five hours ago and ran a facial recognition, I got a footage that mom arrived at L-Corp at 8: 49.”

A video window pops out on the top-right corner of the screen, showing Lena getting off from the backseat, then bid goodbye to her driver with a smile in a high angle shot, it’s clear enough to see that she was wearing a black suit and a red blouse with hair swept back in a ponytail. Then the angle turns into a long shot, showing Lena walking into L-Corp.

“And she went out from L-Corp to buy coffee at 11: 16.”

Another video window pops out in the middle which is from the city surveillance system that exactly covers the coffee shop area, showing Lena walking into a coffee shop near L-Corp and coming out with a tray with two cups of coffee on it and a food bag eight minutes later, she held the door for a man holding a baby before walking away.

Leo gets anxious, “Mom went to buy a coffee for me? I should’ve gone to L-Corp with her, if anything happened to her, I—”

“Leo, calm down,” Kara interrupts, “Get your head in the game, let’s locate Lena first, okay?”

Leo takes a deep breath, “Okay."

Lori frowns, “But there are no footages showing that mom went back to L-Corp, this is not good, I need to expand the coverage.”

Winn moves back to his computer and offers, “I got it! I can hack every device connected to the internet at the drop of a hat,” taking back the control of his computer from Lori, he adds embarrassedly, “Except for Lena Luthor’s tech.”

Alex warns, “Less talking, more working.”

Winn pouts in chagrin but doesn’t dare to rebut.

Standing there with hands on her hips, Kara shifts her body weight to the other leg, the powerlessness of not being able to act right away gets her frustrated, a sinking hunch starts to harass her ceaselessly.

Winn shouts in no time, “Guys, check this out!”

Another video is displaying in the middle of the screen which is obtained from a dashcam installed in a car parked by the roadside, showing Lena just passing by a black van parked ahead, a woman came out of nowhere ran into Lena and made her spill her coffee, the woman immediately apologized to Lena and offered her a pack of tissues to clean her stained clothes, the woman naturally pressed Lena towards the black van in the process, the van’s door slid open suddenly and Lena was pulled into the van by two outstretched hands, the woman got in the van after looking around to make sure no attention was drawn, then the van drove away.

Everyone gasps in astonishment.

Alex commands, “Track the car!”

It doesn't take long before Winn replies, “Dead end, no license plate behind the car.”

Alex mutters a curse.

Kara’s patience runs out, “That’s it, I’m gonna search for her myself, the kidnapping happened less than two hours, she won’t be far.” She starts to walk toward the terrace while looking at Winn, “You keep trying to track her phone and keep me posted on the status, I’ll stay on the comm.”

Winn salutes in response.

“Jeju, wait!” Lori rushes to Kara’s side, “I wanna go with you.”

“No, I can’t take the risk of you being spotted in broad daylight, you stay put to help Winn,” Kara dismisses.

“But it’s mom who got kidnapped! The search would be more efficient with my help!”

Kara keeps walking without sparing Lori a look, “No.”

“Please!” Lori follows Kara up the stairs.

Kara stops and says in an irrefutable tone, “I said no.”

Lori is dejected, her Jeju hardly speaks to her in this tone but when she does, Lori knows she really means it and no objection is allowed. Lori slumps her shoulders and says, “Okay, but please find mom and be safe.”

Softened at Lori’s words and regretting her harsh attitude, Kara puts a hand on Lori’s upper arm, “I’m sorry, I shouldn't talk to you like that, I just don’t want unnecessary trouble from the media that we can’t control,” tracing Lori’s eyes, “Just trust me okay?”

“I always do.”

A tender smile spreads over Kara's face.

Loosened up a little, Lori smiles back and gestures at Supergirl’s exclusive entrance, “Chop-chop, go find your girl.”

Kara ducks her head bashfully at the address but she composes herself quickly. She gives Alex one last look then takes off.

Lori watches her Jeju flying away in a daze while gradually frowning in concern again, failing to notice that Leo’s walked up to her.

“A skirt, huh?” She hears.

She chuckles, looking at Leo in disbelief, “I know, right?”

Leo wraps an arm around Lori’s shoulder and leads her back to the central console, “C’mon, let’s help Uncle Winn with hacking mom, you know it’s a mission impossible, I seriously doubt he can manage it alone.”

Snorting with laughter, Lori nudges Leo’s side and whispers, “You tell me.”

Leo’s consoling apparently works.

_ABOUT TWO HOURS AGO, LENA LUTHOR’S PERSONAL LAB, L-CORP_

Normally, Lena would engross herself in her work alone, but not today, without a certain man talking non-stop and telling terrible jokes to distract her by her side, she is a little absent-minded at her assignment and no progress has been made in the past two hours, and she’s been checking her watch every fifteen minutes with the expectation that the watch would tell her it’s lunchtime already.

The last time she checks her watch, the electronic hour hand finally pasts eleven o’clock, she stops her work willingly and decides to take a coffee break which is new for her, but without a personal errand boy to dispatch, she has to buy coffee herself which she gladly takes as a stress release.

When she gets to the ground floor and passes through security, she is amused at seeing a guard is enjoying his donut behind the reception desk as nothing else matters at the moment that reminds her of Lori, so she stops and decides to make a small chat.

Walking to the desk, she starts in a pleasant tone, “What flavor is that?”

The guard startles, dropping from his donut paradise to reality and looking up, he is surprised at seeing his boss smiling at him, “Ms. Luthor! What can I do for you?”

Lena chuckles, “I was asking what’s the flavor of your donut, you seem quite enjoy it.”

Looking down at his not-much-left-and-pinched-in-two-fingers donut, the guard answers, “Oh, it’s chocolate with caramel sauce,” looking back at Lena, encouraged by the delight in her eyes so he continues, “It’s my daughter’s favorite flavor, she wants more of them in one box so she managed to make it my favorite, you know, kids.”

Lena laughs heartily, “Well, no kids can resist the temptation of chocolate, you can’t blame her for that.” Meanwhile, she makes a mental note to buy Leo a chocolate donut.

The guard laughs along with Lena, “Kids do have their own way of doing things.” The incident that happened the other day passes through his mind, he apologizes, “Ms. Luthor, I’m sorry for stopping your guest the other day, I didn’t know he has full access.”

Lena waves one hand, “Please don’t be, you were just doing your job, I appreciated you for doing that. And I’d better get going now, my brain is protesting about no caffeine ingestion yet.” She smiles at the guard again before leaving, “Nice to chat with you, have a nice day, Jerry.”

Jerry is more surprised that his boss knows his name, “You too, Ms. Luthor,” he says with stretching his neck towards Lena’s receding figure.

After Lena comes out of the coffee shop, she is still full of praise for her whim that she bought two donuts with different flavors, _the perk of having a coffee companion is that we can share our desserts and taste two flavors at once_ , she delights in her thoughts without paying attention to the street until she bumps into something.

“Oops!” the something turns out to be a woman.

Lena takes a step back reflexively at the splashing drink.

“I’m sorry!” the woman frantically fetches a pack of tissues from her bag and hands it to Lena, “God, I hope I didn’t ruin your suit, I’m so sorry!” she keeps apologizing.

“Thank you,” Lena takes the tissues and starts to clean her clothes, thinking it’s just an accident, besides, she has spare clothes in her office, so she isn’t upset by it, “You didn't mean it, don’t worry about it.”

The woman steps closer and puts a hand on Lena’s forearm, she says sincerely, “At least let me buy you a coffee since I spilled yours.”

“No need for that, I got—”

Lena’s words are intercepted by an unexpected force, the next thing she perceives is that she collapses on her back heavily. Before adjusting to the pain spreading from her back, she finds herself being picked up roughly by the collar and pressing on a seat firmly with a hand covering her mouth to muffle her voice by a man, she realizes that she is kidnapped again at this moment. _Lunch crasher_ , she curses inwardly.

Then she hears a slam of the door and a kind of familiar voice says, “Hello, Ms. Luthor, welcome aboard.”

Lena turns to look at her right, finding the voice belongs to the woman who just bumped into her, she widens her eyes and fixes the woman with an angry stare but unable to express her indignation vocally.

The woman comments with a smirk, “Looks like you got a tirade to deliver, but unfortunately, I ain’t got paid for that crap, so why don’t you save all of us trouble by staying quiet, huh?” Then she shoots a look at her goon.

Lena only sees a flash of shadow before she blacks out. _Quarterly assassination attempt, check_ , is the last thought across her mind.

_A WAREHOUSE, UNKNOWN LOCATION_

Lena vaguely feels something that feels like a feather is sweeping her face constantly, which is itchy, but she is still in a stupor and the back of her head is throbbing painfully, she doesn’t feel like opening her eyes.

“Psst! Wake up!” She hears a deep voice.

“Her eyes are moving, try harder!” Another voice comes in.

“Easier said than done, you come to have a try!”

“I don’t have a tail, you insensitive Avatar!”

“You call me Avatar one more time, I’ll fucking end you!”

“Hey, language! You really should learn your manner.”

“We’re about to die, manner my ass!”

_What the hell is happening here?_ Lena is trying to make sense of what she just heard.

“Psssst! Wake up!”

Lena feels the-feather-feeling-like thing burrowing into her nose which is getting her restless, so she comes to her sense and open her eyes but stays lying on her back, staring blankly at the circuitous ventilating ducts above and regaining physical sensation.

“She wakes up, you can stop poking her with your tail now.”

_A tail?_ _Am I being tortured?_ Lena groans.

After a dull metal colliding sound, she hears the deep says again, “Hey human, get up, we’re in big trouble, now is not a good time to stare off into space!”

Lena struggles to sit up. When the surroundings come into her view, she is overwhelmed, “What the—”

Pushing herself to her feet abruptly, a fit of dizziness washes over her, forcing her to screw her eyes shut. Lena revives what she just saw and tries to connect the dots while waiting for the dizziness to wear off. She recalls that she was kidnapped and clearly, she is in a spacious room, the light from the dysprosium lamps placed around illuminates the layout of the interior, there are a row of cages in front of her, a green short alien with pointy ears locked on her left not far away, a slim and tall blue alien with a tail locked right in front of her. Thinking of her current plight and knowing she has to pull herself together to survive, she strives to recover and opens her eyes.

Drifting her gaze between two aliens, Lena starts, “What do you mean by we’re about to die?”

The blue one quickly responds, reaching out an arm from the gap between the two bars and pointing behind Lena, “The bombs!”

Lena turns around and gives the room a once-over, frozen with shock at what she saw.

There is a well-equipped laboratory area enclosed by transparent curtains which is easy to see through, not to mention there is a shadowless lamp placed in the middle shining brightly over a operating table, making the alien lying on it hard to ignore. And just as the blue alien said, four bombs were separately attached to four pillars in the corner that sustain the roof of the room, and worst of all, the timer reads 8: 46 and it keeps counting down.

Lena runs into the laboratory area to check the alien lying on the operating table without hesitation, she picks up a stethoscope from the instrument table to check the alien’s heartbeat while hoping the alien does have a heart that resembles human.

“Don’t waste time on that dude, he hasn’t moved a finger since he was brought in and I can’t sense any emotion from him, I think he is dead.” The blue alien shouts.

The green alien refutes, “How do you know he is a he? What if he is a non-binary?”

“Seriously? You’re arguing with me about pronoun right now?”

“Gender is only a social construct on earth, there is no such thing on my planet.”

“Fuck me!” the blue alien throws one hand over his face, “The time I was locked up with you was the worst time in my life! Worse than the time I spent on my savage planet! You suck, earth suck!”

“Don't make it sound like I enjoyed spending time with you!”

Lena snaps, “Shut up!” She tosses the stethoscope aside, being frustrated at the fact that the lying aline has no vital signs. She sighs deeply at the confusion that has been plaguing her since she woke up, she can understand there is someone out there who want her to die, quite a few to be honest, but why bother to capture those aliens? It doesn’t click.

Huffing in exasperation, Lena comes out from the lab and walks to the closed door to try her luck, but just as she predicted, luck always isn’t on her side, the door doesn’t move an inch with her effort, and to add insult to injury, the kidnappers were seasoned enough to take her phone even her watch which is the first idea to seek for help with that springs to her mind. _They are conscientious in their job_ , Lena thinks sarcastically.

The blue alien panics, “FYI, we’ve tried to open the cage, physical strength isn’t a way out.”

Agreeing with aline’s words, Lena reacts quickly by walking up to the pillar next to the door to check the bomb.

The timer reads 6: 38 now.


	8. search part Ⅱ

Realizing it won't be long before the bombs explode and bury her under reinforced concrete, and knowing the slim chance of survival she got is to defuse as many bombs as she can, although time is tight, Lena is not the one to await a miracle or her doom, she goes into action immediately to examine the bomb thoroughly.

After having a certain degree of confidence that she can stop the countdown, Lenaruns back to the lab to search for tools.

“Hey, what are you doing?” The blue alien asks.

“I’m looking for tools to deactivate the bomb,” Lena answers while rummaging through all drawers.

The green alien almost squeezes its head out of the gap between the two bars in surprise, “You can do that?”

Lena answers calmly, “Maybe, worth a shot, don’t you think?”

The possibility of surviving bucks the green alien up, “I'm rooting for you, spiritually, due to the restriction of my action, anyway, go get it! Miss…?”

Lena hesitates before answering, “Luthor, Lena Luthor,” looking back at two aliens, she quips, “Given we’re inmates now, Lena would be fine.”

The name makes the blue alien’s eyes wide open, “You’re the one who built the device that expelled the Daxam army? You’re a godsend!” looking at the green, “We might get out of here in one piece, man!”

The green lets the inappropriate address slide with excitement, “I knew she looks familiar!”

The blue says indifferently, “Afterthought.”

The banter exchanged between two aliens loosens Lena up a bit, but the contents in the last drawer she pulls open makes her frown in confusion again, which is a stash of files with an L-Corp logo occupying the entire front cover. She snatches the files out of the drawer and gives it a glance over, catching some words as _aliens experiment_ , _elimination_ , _cooperation with Cadmus_ , she has an epiphany of what this is about, it’s an elaborately planned set-up, someone wants to frame her for a rightful alien-hating Luthor name and intends to expose her with an arresting explosion.

Simmering with rage, Lena throws the file to the ground and takes a deep breath with eyes closed to clam herself down, she determines to find out who is the mastermind behind this unsurprising plot, but now, she knows her priority is to pull through.

An inspiration comes to Lena after failing to acquire the tools she expected through the search, she picks up a scalpel and a tweezer from the instrument table and runs to a pillar close to the cages to defuse her first bomb to reduce the possibility of two aliens’ casualties.

The timer reads 4: 48 now.

Lena immediately dismantles the bomb’s panel to expose its inner structure, steadying her hands, she thinks, _Not today, Satan, not after I know I have a wonderful life waiting for me._

The scene that Lena fiddling with the bomb interests the movie fan, the green alien, tremendously, it asks out of curiosity, “Is it like in a movie where the protagonist has to decide which wire to cut, like the red one or the blue one?”

The blue retorts, “Not everything is like a movie, and stop bothering her!”

Lena says without pausing, “Movies are fictional, besides, I’m not the one who counts on probability, not to mention that the probability of success would reduce dreadfully when it comes to the power of four.”

The green mumbles, “Some characters are more realistic than actual people to me.”

“Huh,” Lena hums, “I haven’t caught your names yet, care to introduce yourselves?”

The green responds energetically, “My earth name is Dorky, nice to meet you, Lena!”

“I told you no one would call himself Dorky on earth, Lena, you see what I am dealing with for all those time?” The blue asks for backup.

Lena says, “I think Dorky is a cute name.”

“Yes! Thank you, Lena.” Dorky says defiantly to the blue, “Your point?”

The blue raises a hand with palm facing Dorky, “Talk to my hand, dork,” looking back at Lena’s busy figure, “And my name is Sofosanthropos, friends call me Sofy.”

Dorky mimics Sofy’s previous tone, “I told you your name is too long and difficult to pronounce, I’ll stick to Avatar.”

“One done.” Lena declares in time, prevented another fierce verbal battle. She looks sideways at two locked aliens while running past the row of cages to the next pillar, and says, “Nice to meet you too.”

Standing in front of the second bomb and seeing she only has two minutes and fourteen seconds left, Lena repeats the previous procedure and calculates that the remaining time might be barely enough to deactivate this bomb due to she’s gotten the hang of it already but clearly insufficient for two more, and she can’t estimate the impact of the explosion of the remaining two bombs, so she says, “I don’t have enough time to stop all bombs, so you’d better curl up in the corner to protect yourself.”

Dorky recoils in horror, “But what about you?”

“I have to deactivate this bomb to increase the probability of our survival,” Lena stops to glare at them, “Do as I say, now.” Her voice is insistent and steady, succeeding in hiding a stab of fear racing through her mind as the timer keeps countdown provocatively right in front of her.

Sofy follows Lena’s instruction and says, “Lena, I can feel you’re much more sacred than you look, but no matter whether we can survive this or not, I just want to thank you for not showing a trace of disgust to us for us being aliens, it’s rare in those days.”

Dorky echoes, “For the first time, I agree with you.”

Lena shrugs, “My best friend is an alien, and I love her, a lot, but I haven’t told her that so I—” a realization strikes her suddenly, she pauses to look at Sofy, “Wait, you’re a telepathist?”

Sofy answers, “Yes, I thought I made it clear since I told you I can’t sense any emotion from the dude lying on that table from the beginning.”

Lena asks with hope blinking in her eyes, “Can you send a message that we’re trapped here to Supergirl with your telepathy?”

“I am not sure, I’ve never sent a message to a specific person before,” Sofy hesitates.

Lena proceeds her work and urges, “Give it a try, it’s now or never.”

“Okay,” Sofy puts two fingers on its temple to concentrate on its attempt.

Dorky gulps nervously, holding up both hands and crossing two of its four fingers, “Fingers crossed.”

_DEO_

They haven't got any farther with Lena’s location since Kara left who has been asking repeatedly about the progress through the comm, which has made the crinkle on Alex’s face deepen because her sister’s restrained tone indicates that she is on the verge of a lash out, on the other hand, the reason why Alex feels that there is tons of weight pressing on her shoulders is that J’onn’s gone to Mars and leaving her in charge of DEO, a failed operation is not a consequence she can bear, besides, in this case, it’s her friend who is in danger so failure can’t even be thought about.

Leo and Winn sit alongside in front of computers, communicating ideas in a low voice for subconsciously fearing igniting the tension in the room. Assessing the situation, Agent Vasquez has discreetly indicated all agents on the floor not to disturb them. Agents without assignment walk on eggshells around them, deliberately light their footstep.

Looking at the popup message of SIGNAL TRACING FAILURE appears obstinately in the middle of the tablet screen for the fourth time, Lori grabs the edge of the console table with both hands to support herself and goes paralyzed for a moment, her composure has been slowly eroded by repeated failures. The development of the whole time travel thing has exceeded her expectation, she can’t help but suspect that her advent has changed the original timeline already and led to the current situation, which plunges her into deep self-accusation. She definitely can’t take the possible outcome that her mom gets hurt, or the worst, be dead, and she doesn’t intend to test out the grandfather paradox through this mishap at all. The urge to do something, anything, that might contribute to the current situation is roaring in her head so loudly that occupies all her attention and mutes Alex’s concerned inquiry until Alex holds her wrist.

“Lori, let go your hands, you’re bending the table,” Alex tightens her grip, trying to deliver some comfort.

Lori darts a look at the uneven metal and steps back embarrassedly, revealing two conspicuous pits, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to destroy anything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alex waves one hand, eyeing Lori with concern, “What's in your head? You look so intense.”

“I—uhh,” Lori looks down at her feet, hesitating to tell her worry because she fears that it might be true once she vocalizes it.

Doesn’t want to push Lori any far, Alex says, “It’s okay you don’t wanna talk, but I need you to play all your cards, you’re literally the smartest person in the room, I’m counting on you,” putting one hand on Lori’s shoulder, “Kara is counting on you.”

Alex’s words actually make Lori feel more guilty, jerking her head up with a frown and shaking Alex’s hand off her shoulder, Lori hisses, “What if it was me?” seeing that her aunt’s expression morphing into confusion, she elaborates, “What if it was my advent that caused mom in this jeopardy? What if we can’t find her in time? What if mom—”

“Lori,” Alex interrupts Lori’s ominous conjecture quickly in a firm tone, “I may not know what caused this incident, but I do know that we can’t trap ourselves in what ifs, and I really, really, need you to get it together and keep trying, any help would be useful right now.”

Reminded of keeping the priority straight, Lori complies, “Yeah, first things first.”

Knowing she’s talked some sense into Lori, Alex adds, “For Lena, and for us.”

Lori dissolves into a smile and nods, then continues to make another attempt at tracking her mom, intentionally ignoring the pits she caused before.

Looking at the stiff muscles in Lori’s neck that are bulging out of tension, Alex’s lingering worries adds another layer that Lori is as impatient as Kara, even more reckless to a certain degree, and frankly, the fact that Lori listened to Kara’s dissuasion and hasn’t flown out of DEO yet surprises her slightly. Alex sighs silently, then goes to check Winn and Leo’s progress.

“Lena should’ve been a consultant in cybersecurity at DEO, she’s really something,” Winn compliments and complains at the same time.

Inputting codes at a high rate of speed without glancing at the keyboard, Leo says, “Uh-huh, She will be,” can’t hold back his tongue anymore, he says, “Your firewall is too outdated, frankly speaking, I can invade DEO’s network with my watch.”

Winn chokes on the second serious blow to his tech for knowing what Leo said is likely true, _those future kids just took advantage of time_ , he thinks bitterly. Winn feels a cold wind blowing behind him just when he is about to fight back, intuitively, he knows it’s Alex, so he stops himself at the last moment and continues to tackle the hardest problem he’s encountered so far.

Winn’s computer sounds an alarm, he hastily calls up everyone, “Guys! I got something!”

Lori pops up beside Alex, “What’s it?”

“I accessed GCPD’s database and identified the woman who kidnapped Lena,” Winn presents the file on the screen, “Her name is Elaine Marsh-Morton, aka Lady Vic, a mercenary.”

Alex comments, “Took you long enough.”

Winn grumbles, “It just occurred to me,” sliding aside on his chair to give everyone a better view, “And I’ve retrieved a surveillance footage of her coming out a building three days ago.”

The peculiar logo on the lobby wall catches Alex’s eyes immediately, “Morgan Edge,” she squints her eyes mutters.

Recognizing the name, Leo turns to look at Lori, “That’s the man who disturbed us in the street yesterday!”

Alex tries to sort out the new information, “You encountered Morgan Edge yeste—” But being interrupted by a roar from Lori, then a whoosh follows that makes her short red hair fluttering in the air which she is familiar enough with to know that Lori’s superspeeded out.

Leo stands up, looking at Alex anxiously, “Aunt Alex, we need to follow Lori and stop her before she does anything irretrievable.”

Alex reacts quickly, “Winn, keep tracking Lena and keep me posted,” starting to move toward the exit, she deploys, “Agent Vasquez, assemble a team and follow me to Morgan Edge’s office.”

Hovering above National City, Kara has been searching the entire city with her X-ray version, she’s even searched the sea vaguely, still, no trace of Lena gets her more and more disturbed as time goes by, and deep down, she knows that without a specific location of Lena provided by her team, her search would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, which is an idle work and unacceptable in consideration of time.

She pauses and ascends vertically to get close to the sun, closing her eyes and absorbing the energy of the sun to gain the strength she needs to go through this darkness, physically and mentally.

Suddenly, a strange voice calling Supergirl comes to her head, it starts lowish like a distant whisper that she thinks as a hallucination at first, then the voice gets more and more distinct in her mind and when she perceives the urgency contained in it, she knows right away that someone is trying to communicate with her by telepathy.

Kara responds immediately, _it’s Supergirl here_.

_I did it!_ Kara hears the voice again, coming along with a burst of ecstasy, _Lena and I are locked up here and the bombs are about to explode, come to save us!_

Kara freezes, _Where?_

_I’ll show you!_

An image of a dim room emerges in Kara’s head which is from a view of a cage, she sees Lena is fiddling with something on a pillar with her jaw clenching through the bars, then the image fades into fuzziness from the periphery until it concentrates on a humanoid silhouette that is exuding blue shimmer. The feeling is hard to describe with words and Kara still doesn’t know their specific location, but the shimmer lights up the way like a lighthouse glistening in the night, which is too conspicuous to miss.

Kara flies towards the guided direction in superspeed and the shimmer becomes a clear image of an alien when she arrives at a one-story warehouse in the outskirt, Kara knows that she is at the right place. She breaks in from a safe spot on the roof after using X-ray vision to locate the captives.

Lena just finished deactivating the second bomb and the timer stopped at 00: 18 when she hears a loud noise of stones breaking, following with a familiar thump that announces Supergirl’s arrival.

Dorky cries out, “Supergirl!”

Before the sense of relief washes over her, Lena points in the direction of the other two bombs and says, “Supergirl, take those two bombs out, now!”

Lena only sees a blur of red and blue waggle and disappear into the hole on the roof, then she hears a loud explosion from above that makes her instinctively hold her head and squat down.

Dorky looks at Sofy and says, “We’re saved! Can you telepathize how happy I am? I could give you a kiss right now!”

“Don’t you dare lay a finger on me,” Sofy threats, “And your brain is blanker than a piece of paper, I can’t sense anything from you at all.”

“Oh,” Dorky sighs regrettably, doesn’t realize that Sofy was just teasing.

Lena is pulled into a tight hug just when she stands up straight.

“Thank Rao you’re okay,” Kara pulls Lena closer to her, resting her cheek to Lena’s ear, “I think I finally understand the phrase, 'you almost gave me a heart attack’, it was awful,” tightening her arms as worrying that Lena would disappear somehow, “That was a close call.”

Kara smells like smoke which must be the result of the explosion, but Lena doesn’t mind at all, she clenches Kara’s cape, indulging in the superhero’s embrace. With her heartbeat stabilizing, Lena knows clearly that this ease comes with Kara’s presence, not Supergirl, although they’re the same person it’s different for Lena. “You saved me, again,” she says.

Maybe it’s the smell of Lena’s familiar perfume that relaxes Kara, she jokes, “Well, lucky for you, I don’t charge.”

Lena lets out muffled laughter because she may or may not intentionally tilted her head and settled her nose to the crook of Kara’s neck, and her lips are touching the blonde’s skin ghostly.

Lena’s breath breezes across Kara’s skin with the side effect of making the superhero blush, it is itchy but comforting.

Dorky looks at the two who are hugging each other tightly with its eyes widening almost as big as its ears, “Wait, are Supergirl and Lena a thing?”

Sofy confirms, “They’re definitely fucking.”

Remembering they are not alone, Kara runs her hands along Lena’s back and fixes on her shoulders, pushing the brunette apart gently and tilting her head at two still locked aliens, she says, “I need to deal with them first, duty calls, maybe resume the hug later, like in private?” biting her lower lip bashfully and waiting for Lena’s answer.

Dorky’s big ears apparently provide it a sharp auditory sense, it exclaims, “We’re good here! Take your time with Lena, I don't rush to get out and also don't mind staying here for a while longer.”

Lena chuckles, being perfectly aware that she and Kara have put on a romantic show, “Okay, later.”

Showing her unconcealed simile, Kara repeats happily, “Okay, later.” Then she superspeeds to the cages and pulls the doors open, stepping back and putting her hands on her hips, “I see you are on a first-name basis now,” she says with a smile.

Sofy steps out of the cage and says, “Given she saved us regardless of her own safety, we’re friends now, so don’t forget inviting me to your wedding, and please stop thinking about how good Lena smells and how soft she feels, your mind is too loud to ignore.”

Dorky chimes in eagerly, “And me!”

Having no intention to deny the fact that she and Lena do will get married but being shy of her non-platonic thought being busted, Kara stutters, “I—emm, I—I don’t know when will—”

Lena comes to the superhero’s rescue, “Sofy, you’re making Supergirl crashing from system overload,” looking at Sofy with concern condensing in her eyes, “Can you—”

Sensing Lena’s hesitation, Sofy promises, “You have nothing to worry about, we’ll keep our mouth shut about you and Supergirl,” jabbing Dorky with its elbow, “Right, dork?”

Dorky assures, “Of course,” elbowing back at Sofy, “Avatar.”

Kara puts her Supergirl mask back on, “Is it okay for you to make a detailed account of how you were brought here in a government facility? It might help us find the culprit.”

Dorky takes helping Supergirl as a compelling obligation, “Yeah! Let’s find the bastard who did this to us, I want him, her or them have a taste of being locked in a cage!”

Sofy resists the urge to rolls its eyes at Dorky’s persistence about pronoun.

Kara nods and checks in through her comm, “Alex, I’ve found Lena and she is safe now, I need you to send a team to my current location, there are two kidnapped aliens, you might need some statement from them.”

“Good, I’ll have Winn to make arrangements for it,” Alex’s strained voice comes from the other end, which makes Kara know something is off.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Lori, I’m on my way up to Morgan Edge’s office now, I’ll explain later.” Then Alex cuts off the comm.

_MORGAN EDGE’S OFFICE_

Looking at his watch, Edge glories in his upcoming triumph of taking down another rival. _I gave that Luthor bitch the reputation she deserves and a dramatic ending that accords with her family-style_ , he gloats over Lena’s death.

Suddenly, a sound of smashing glass rings behind him, he feels he is pulled up by the collar just when he is about to turn around to see what happened, then he feels his back hit the wall violently in the next second, the bump makes his head dizzy and eyes blurry.

“Where did you take Lena Luthor!” He hears an angry female voice.

Opening his eyes, Edge recognizes the person who is holding him, “Hey, aren’t you Lena’s bodyguard? Looks like you did a terrible job at protecting her.”

“Don't give me that shit, where is her!” Lori shouts.

“Why do you blame me for her missing, I have nothing to do with it,” Edge pretends to be indignant, “You’re insane, you know that?”

“Nice try,” Lori slams him against the wall again, grinding her teeth, “I’m gonna ask you one last time, where did you take Lena Luthor?”

Edge takes Lori’s wrists, struggling to loosen her grip but Lori seems totally unaffected by his endeavor, “How come you so strong?” Then a thought strikes him, widening his eyes in horror, “You’re an alien!”

“Not too late for you to realize it,” lifting Edge along the wall, Lori demands, “Answer my question!”

Edge panics, “Let me go, I’ll tell you.”

Lori complies reluctantly and throws him to the ground, “Spit it out!”

Edge rips off his collar in stress, “Even if I told you, it would’ve been too late.”

Lori freezes, “What do you mean?” 

Edge gulps nervously before answering, “Bombs, the bombs installed in the warehouse will explode at any second now, it’s too late.”

Lori completely loses control after hearing Edge’s words, she rushes to Edge’s side and pins him down to the ground by grabbing his neck, she doesn’t know what she is doing or what she is intending to do at this moment, this is just how she reacts.

Edge’s face flushes from lack of oxygen, patting Lori’s arm repeatedly and groaning, “I can’t breathe!”

All Lori can think of right now is her mom, some clips of her with Lena flashes across her mind, the one that Lena showed up at her dorm door at 9 in the morning with coffee to check on her for Lena heard the tiredness in her voice through the previous night’s phone call due to she had worked endlessly on a project in the lab for two days. Lena insisted on skipping classes to have a mother-daughter day, Lena said, “C’mon, I haven’t been MIT for ages, can you show me around? Besides, you’re already the top of your class, some indiscipline won’t hurt.” Their tour ended up with Lena being the guide, Lena took Lori to her own favorite places while she was in college, the coffee shop where she spent most afternoons reading books at, the restaurant that served the best smoothie in town (according to Lena herself), and the pub that she occasionally visited (which Lori was suspected about the term of _occasionally_ ). And one can imagine that Lena got drunk unsurprisingly at the end of the day, so Lori had to ask Kara to fly her home. Watching Kara carrying Lena with an indulgent smile, Lori quirked up the corners of her mouth spontaneously, and she knew that her mom cleared a busy schedule just to make sure she took some rest. The one when she was 10 years old, Lena saw her staring intently at a documentary about penguins on TV one night, the next day Lena took her and Leo on a private jet to see penguins in Antarctica, Lena’s nose red with cold but still watched her chasing penguins and Leo being chased by penguins in amusement. The one whenever she woke up in the middle of the night and climbed into her moms' bed when she was little, Lena would welcome her with a warm hug and a kiss on her head. Actually, no matter it’s a trivial detail or a grand gesture from Lena, there isn’t a single day she doesn’t feel that she is blessed.

Thinking of this, a flicker of red and blue gathering in her eyes, she doesn’t care about the consequence right now, she just wants this man to pay for what he took from her with his life.

A sound of the door bursting open and a hasty footstep come to her ears, then she feels she is dragged from behind, she hears Alex’s voice, “Lori! Let him go! Supergirl has found Lena, she is safe now.” 

Distracted by Alex’s words, she lets go of her hands, “Really?” she asks blankly.

Alex pulls Lori from the ground, “Yes, I promise.”

Lori sighs in relief, starting to even out her breath.

Alex darts a fortunately-we-arrived-in-time look at Leo who is keeping a straight face and remaining silent, Alex’s heart sinks, _silence is bad_. In order to give the sibling some space to talk, she gestures to Agent Vasquezto clear up the mess.

Received the instruction, Agent Vasquez cuffs Edge and recites Miranda warning while escorting him out of the office, “You’re under arrest for abetting a felon and attempted homicide, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can be used against you in court, you have the right to…”

As Agent Vasquez’s voice fading away, Alex signals all agents to leave and wait in the cars downstairs.

After everyone except Alex vacates the office, Leo strides to Lori and reprimands, “You almost killed that man! What were you thinking? Jeju specifically told you not to fly around.”

Lori knows she almost made a horrible mistake, but the surge of adrenaline is still running wildly in her vein and Leo’s tone feels like a stab to her heart, she shoves Leo at his chest and says, “Don’t you tell me what to do or not to do.”

Lori obviously failed to control her strength which results in Leo falling backward.

Alex gasps, “Lori…” Not sure whether she should step in the quarrel between the sibling.

Lori is guilty of her rude behavior but also is obstinate at the moment, so she crosses her arms and turns her head to the side to avoid eye contact with Leo.

Enduring the pain that spreads from his waist and standing up, Leo says, “You’re always like this!” throwing his head back in frustration, “You use your power whenever you feel like it, can’t you just think before act for once! What do you want me to tell Mom and Jeju if anything has happened to you!”

At the mention of Mom and Jeju, a legitimate grievance and the emotion of being misunderstood get the better of her, filled with an ungovernable rage, Lori snaps, “What do you know about my power and my feelings? You’re not even a real Luthor-Danvers!”

Then the room goes quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last part of this chapter was my evil motivation for writing this fic, I’m quivering right now.  
> Please feel free to leave your comments, I really love reading them.


	9. a heart of the House of El

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've emended some mistakes in previous chapters.

Silence reigns.

Leo freezes on the spot like someone has cast a spell that can stop the world from revolving and stares at Lori in disbelief, for a moment he wishes what Lori said is just a hallucination, but he heard her, loud and clear. Lori’s remark clutches at his heart tightly, he opens his mouth and tries to let out a syllable but fails. In fact, this isn’t the first time other people mock him that he is not a real Luthor-Danvers because he is not good enough but he never expects it from his family, especially not from Lori who he grew up with and shared everything first with, words bite and can hurt the most fragile spot inside precisely. He looks away and fixes his eyes at the mess on the carpet caused by Lori’s previous recklessness with his expression morphing into sadness.

Lori is overwhelmed by guilt when she realizes what she said is a fatal blow to her brother, she wishes she can take it back literally this time but she knows better that what’s done cannot be undone, there is no excuse for saying things like that although she was acting purely on impulse and said it without any kind of thought for the consequences.

Filling with remorse, she hurries to Leo and reaches out tentatively to hold his hand, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I—”

Leo flinches away from Lori’s touch and steps back, still refusing to look at Lori, he whispers, “I…I need some air.” Then he leaves the room quickly.

“Leo!” Lori wants to follow her brother but is stopped by Alex who just rushes to stand in front of her and blocks the way.

“Give him some space,” Alex says in a gentle voice. The reason why she managed to hold her tongue is that Lori’s words reminded her of the time when Kara was accidentally exposed to Red Kryptonite, which ended up with Kara crying sorrowfully, it’s heart-broken. Besides, she is sure that the siblings will be reconciled for they have a special and solid bond through her observations of their interaction in the past few days, just like she and Kara.

“But I—”

“No buts,” Alex interrupts, her voice firmer this time, “I’ll ask Kara to find him later, let’s go back to DEO now,” deepening the frown on her face that shows a hint of disapproval, “You might also need some time to reflect on… this.”

Lori deflates and winces at the mention of her Jeju, she can only imagine disappointment and anger on her moms’ faces when they hear about it which is more terrifying than Kryptonite for her,but she is not the one who would hide away from admitting mistakes thanks to her moms’ words and deeds.

Knowing her aunt’s handling of the situation is the most appropriate way at present and willing to do whatever she could to make amends, she complies, “Okay,” slumping her shoulders, “Hope my moms will go easy on me since technically, they’re not my moms yet.”

Alex narrows her eyes, “I’ll make sure they won’t.”

Lori groans in pain.

“You deserve it,” Alex shrugs and leads the way.

_MEDICAL BAY, DEO_

Sitting on the small bed and waiting for her brain scan result alone in the room with Kara who is standing in front of her, Lena notices that the superhero has been keeping looking towards the door restlessly, so she appeases again, “Supergirl, I’m fine, I merely feel slightly dizzy and sick, I think it might just be a mild concussion, tops, so don’t worry.”

Kara’s eyes go wild, looking at Lena in disbelief, “Just? Lena, c’mon, how come you’re so cool with it?”

Tilting her head, Lena wrinkles up her nose in a grin, “I’m a Luthor.”

Kara gets disturbed, “Lena—”

Lena gets up from the bed and walks up to Kara, holding the superhero’s hand, she says, “I’m strong and smart, I can handle a bomb without proper tools, so I definitely can handle myself and an ailment.”

Relaxing with Lena’s touch, “You are one of the strongest and smartest women I know,” Kara says genuinely.

Lena smiles fondly, “And you, are the most caring, protective, and kind person I know, and those traits are one of the things that I love about you,” stroking the back of Kara’s hand, “I’m very grateful to have you as my best friend in my life.” _And as my partner in the future_ , is what she leaves out and says inwardly.

Kara looks into the emerald affectionately and whispers, “I’m grateful to have you too.”

Holding Kara’s gaze, Lena lost in the moment. She is a scientist who believes in data and facts, not in magic, but being around Kara shakes her conviction of science, it does seem that there is a higher power that draws her to the Super, or it’s just Kara herself, she doesn’t know for sure, either way, it’s irresistible and magical.

They stay like this, unaware of where they are at right now, being perfectly content. Until a doctor comes with the result and knocks on the glass door, which startles them and reminds them that they’re at a public place.

Watching the two separate hastily and Supergirl pretend to look around casually, the doctor thinks to herself, _I’m working for a clandestine organization that monitors aliens, I’ve seen lots of spectacles, so a Super and a Luthor is not something out of the ordinary, at all_. She maintains her professionalism and enters the room, “Miss Luthor, the result of your CT scan has come out, it shows that there is no injury in your brain, I think you’re good to go.” Seeing Supergirl heave a sigh of relief instead of Lena Luthor herself, her lips twitch with amusement.

Hearing the doctor's diagnosis, Lena shoots a smug look of _I told you so_ to Kara.

Without missing the silent interaction between the two, the doctor says, “But with the symptoms you described, I highly recommend you to get plenty of rest and have someone to stay with you for forty-eight hours for insurance,” looking at Supergirl playfully, she teases, “Which I assume that you would take as a bounden duty to look after our citizen, right, Supergirl?”

“Of course,” Kara says solemnly.

“Good,” the doctor nods to the two before walking away. It’s clear that, wittingly or unwittingly, she’s taken the role of wingwoman.

Lena’s heart flutters but her integrity remains intact, “Supergirl, you don’t have to nurse me while you have more important jobs to do,” she says halfheartedly, “Besides, I have two competent—”

The doctor stops at the door, twisting around her head, and says, “Oh, one more doctor advice, please avoid any _strenuous_ exercise.” Then she slopes off for good.

Lena chuckles at catching the sexual innuendo in the doctor’s words by the stress that fell on strenuous _,_ which Kara was oblivious to as always.

“Mmmmm, what’s so funny?” Kara asks with her brows knitted together.

Lena waves one hand, “Just something silly,” clearing her throat and trying her best to suppress a smile, she continues, “Anyway, back to where we were, I have Leo and Lori with me, they can take over the duty of watching me,” pausing with hesitancy, “Speaking of which, have you heard from Alex yet? What exactly is going on with them?”

Kara frowns deeper, “I don’t know, but judging by Alex’s tone, I’d say not something pretty.”

_“At least let me tell them myself, please!”_

_“Sure.”_

Lori and Alex’s voice comes to her ear from the stairs outside along with approaching heavy footsteps, she says, “Here they come, we’ll find out soon.”

Lena nods and turns to face the door, waiting.

Kara does the same automatically.

Lori cracks under her moms’ questioning gaze that pierces through the glass wall and lands on her face, the seriousness projecting from them is more intimidating than she’s ever felt owing to being together with each other has softened them. It’s not the upcoming criticism that she can’t take, but the disappointment on her moms’ faces for she knows clearly that how much they value family. She stands beside Alex after entering the room, facing her moms at close range, she seems to have lost the faculty of speaking.

Alex stands still with hands on her hips and stays silent, offering Lori a chance to take the initiative in starting the conversation, just like she promised.

Kara doesn’t like the tension creeping in the room, she breaks the deadlock, “What do you wanna tell us yourself?”

“I’ve done something terrible,” Lori says in a low voice.

Lena quirks up an eyebrow, “Which is?”

Seeing her Mom’s reserved expression, Lori laments silently before answering, “I ignored Jeju’s caution, flew to Morgan Edge’s office and almost killed him, the only reason he is under arrest alive is that Aunt Alex stopped me in time.”

Kara sighs heavily and gives Alex a grateful look.

It all clicks into place when Lena hears the notorious name, she scoffs, “Of course it was him,” looking at Lori in all earnestness, “Trust me you’re not alone on this, I feel like killing him myself right now.”

Lori lets out awkward laughter because she knows her Mom’s words aren’t just a figurative speaking.

“And?” Alex pushes Lori.

Lori gulps nervously, “And I upset Leo by shouting at him that he was not a real Luthor-Danvers, I swear I’ve never thought that he was not a family, it totally came out of nowhere,” her voice trails off, looking at her moms with pleading in her eyes, “I’m sorry…”

Alex comments, “Upset is an understatement.”

Lena crosses her arms and clenches her jaw, a surge of sadness mixed with anger sweeps over her, which comes as a shock at first for she only knows those two kids for three days. _I do have feelings_ , she thinks bitterly.

“Oh…” Kara starts to pace the floor frustratedly with her head down, she recalls the hurt in Alex’s eyes even with the knowledge that her brain was altered by Red Kryptonite when she said something similar, she feels awfully bad for Leo. “Okay, okay, okay,” regaining a little calmness, she asks, “Where is Leo now?”

Lori shakes her head, fighting back the urge to cry.

Sensing that she might’ve muddled the situation, Alex intervenes, “I figured that he might need some space, so I let him walk away,” seeing Kara is about to complain, she quickly adds, “But I had an agent follow him, he is at National City Central Park now, you’d better go check on him.”

Kara says to Lena, “I’ll take him back to your penthouse after I find him, see you then?”

“Okay,” Lena agrees with a weak smile.

Kara shoots Lori a meaningful look before striding away, with the sound of her stamping out of the room gradually dying away, the room falls quiet.

The quietness worries Alex, trying to lighten up the mood, she jokes, “Phew, parenting is hard, huh?”

The room is still cloaked in a shroud of silence, the joke doesn’t land.

Alex immediately knows it’s her cue to leave to give the mother and daughter some privacy, pointing at the door, she says, “I’m gonna go to follow up Morgan Edge’s interrogation, and I’ll arrange a car to drive you home whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Lena says.

Alex pats Lori’s shoulder and whispers the best suggestion she can think of before leaving, “Talk it out with Lena.”

Lori nods and keeps watching her aunt’s receding figure until Alex suddenly turns around like she is telepathic and mouthes _Talk_ with spreading arms. Dragging herself from the daze back into the present, Lori starts, “Mom, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t,” Lena holds up a hand, “Don’t apologize to me, I’m not the one who you should apologize to, actually, I am not even sure whether I’m entitled to be angry with you.”

“Of course you can be angry with me, I totally deserve it,” Lori mutters.

Lena snorts, “Frankly, I fully understand why you said it, you said it because deep down,you knew it would hurt Leo most, am I right?” putting on a sarcastic smile, “Hurting people with the harshest words is something a Luthor would do, I give you credit for being a real Luthor, which unsurprisingly, you got from me too.”

“Mom…” Lori’s eyes suddenly brim with tears. Not only the way Lena said the Luthor name like a curse that crushes her, but also the self-loathing and sadness in her mom’s eyes are too much for her to watch.

Being caught up in her whirling emotion, Lena makes a lousy choice of words, “You know, my mother made me feel like an outsider throughout my childhood, but then she told me that I was a Luthor by blood, you basically did the same to Leo but in a reverse. If Lillian was able to fool me with her bullshit that she loved me and wanted a second chance with me, I have confidence that you can also be persuasive enough to make Leo forgive you.”

Tears stream down Lori’s face, blurring her eyes. Her Mom has never talked to her like this, this satiric and cold, all she feels right now is deeply wronged and unwanted, the young version Lena really stings. The more she sinks into her sentiment, the more she cries in chagrin.

Watching Lori weep sadly like a child, Lena realizes that she’s gone a little too far and she did the same thing she accused Lori of doing—hurting people with words, which she seems to be better at. With her sense prevailing, she murmurs, “God, I’m horrible,” walking gingerly to Lori who is wiping her tears with her sleeve, “Lori, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, that’s too mean and insensitive, I’m so—“

“Mom, it’s okay, I think you just made me feel what Leo felt,” Lori sobs intermittently, “And I love you too much to be mad at you,” forcing an uncoordinated smile, “I wish Leo would feel the same about me.”

Lena smiles, “Although I’ve known you for a short time, there is one thing I know for sure, Leo loves you, loves his family to be more precise,” can’t help teasing Lori, “Besides, according to my observation, he’s more considerate and sweeter than you, so I think you stand a great chance that he would forgive you.”

“Mom!” Lori exclaims incredibly, “You’re showing partiality, It’s bad parenting.”

Lena shrugs, “I’m still getting the hang of it.”

Lori cracks a smile, and Lena smiles along.

“I think both of us should work on improving our wording when we get furious,” Lena says after Lori composes herself.

“Yeah,” Lori endorses, lifting her chin, “Especially you, you know the adage, children are what the mothers are.”

Lena hums, “How aggressive.”

“Like mother, like daughter.”

“Stop it, you’re being annoying.”

Lori snorts with laughter, looking at her mom adorably, “Shall we go home now?”

Lena smiles, “Yes, we shall.”

Kara watches Leo from behind who is sitting on a bench and is deep in meditation, she’s not sure whether now is a good time to disturb him.

Leo suddenly turns around and rests his arm atop the backrest, “Jeju, how long do you plan to stand there?” he asks amusingly.

Kara is stunned, “How do you—”

“I heard you land in the bush,” Leo jerks a thumb at the nearby bush, “You’re not as discreet as you think, also, changing clothes in a bush is so lame.”

Kara fidgets her glasses embarrassedly.

“Care to join me?” Leo moves aside to leave some space for Kara.

“Yeah,” Kara walks over and sits beside Leo, “Thanks.”

Both of them look ahead, fall silent tacitly.

“This was my favorite place when I was a kid, you brought me and Lori here to play frequently,” Leo starts after a while.

Kara stays quiet, waiting for Leo to continue.

“Felix,” Leo turns to look at Kara, “Felix was my deceased parents’ last name. Actually, there was a funny story about it, you and Mom had a fight about whether or not to change my last name to Luthor-Danvers. You insisted that I should keep my original last name for you wanted me to remember where I came from, to hold my legacy, but Mom wanted to include me in the family in every way possible,” he chuckles, “I guess you know how the fight ended, Mom won, as usual.”

Kara grins, that does sound like something she would do. Wanting to know more about Leo’s past, she asks tentatively, “Lori told us your parents died from a fire, can you tell me more about them?”

Leo adjusts his posture uncomfortably.

“Oh—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry, I just—”

“Jeju, relax, it's not like that, It’s just…” Leo sighs, “I don’t remember them very much, I hardly remember their faces,” his eyes filling with sorrow, “Am I a terrible son?”

“No, Leo, you’re not terrible, you were just a kid at that time,” Kara says in disapproval, sinking in Leo’s words, “So you don’t have anything that can help you remember them?” At least she has her mother’s holography at DEO which she can talk to whenever she wants, it consoles her even it’s just an edited program.

“No, the fire destroyed everything,” Leo shakes his head, “But I do remember that the fire in the building was scorching hot and everyone was screaming, and when you came to our apartment,my biological mother handed me to you and begged you to take me to a safe place first, then she ran back to the bedroom to help my trapped father, but it was too late, the fire swallowed them before you returned.”

“I’m sorry.”

Leo perks up, “But the fire brought you to me, you told me that I wouldn’t let you go when you tried to hand me to the medical staffs, that I held your neck so tightly that you almost thought I had Super Strength or something, you couldn’t stop thinking about me after you went home, so next thing you knew, you and Mom adopted me officially,” his eyes gleaming with tenderness, “As you said, Rao binds us to those we love.”

Surprised at Leo saying Rao’s prayer, Kara smiles softly, “You mentioned legacy earlier, I don’t think it’s a fortune or a bloodline, but the faith and spirit that we pass on,” widening her smile, “Although I don’t know you and Lori, like really know you, I think it's safe to say that Lori might have my power and Lena’s intelligence, but you have a heart of the House of El,” taking Leo’s hand in her palm, “You hold the true legacy of our family, this is what really matters, and I’m so proud of you for this.”

Smiling back at Kara, Leo says, “El Mayarah.”

“El Mayarah.”

The evening wind breezes through them, brings along the not-yet-dissipated warmth of the sun.

“Okay, let’s go,” Leo stands up, “I have an apology to accept.”

Kara follows and teases, “Why are you so sure that Lori would apologize to you? You seem to have great faith in her.”

“C’mon, I know she didn’t mean what she said, she just never thinks before she speaks when she gets carried away, me coming here just to give her some space to calm herself down,” Leo says.

“You mean calm yourself down?”

“Meh, tomato potato.” Leo waves one hand, “Furthermore, I think Mom must’ve done me justice by biting her head off since you’re the one who came to me,” swing his head smugly, “I have nothing to complain.”

Kara laughs, “Lena could be intimidating when she wants to be, I’ll give you that.”

“Ha! I’m gonna report you to Mom that you’ve talked behind her back!” Leo says before running away.

Astonished, Kara runs after him (at a normal human speed), “Stop! Where is your stronger together spirit?”

“Sorry not sorry, I prefer to stand Mom!” Leo shouts.

_LENA LUTHOR’S PENTHOUSE_

Standing by Lori’s side in the kitchen, Lena says, “You use chopped dark chocolate for hot chocolate? Normally, I only use hot chocolate mix and hot milk.”

“Well, this isn’t a normal hot chocolate,” Lori says while measuring sugar, “I’m making an Italian style hot chocolate,” she makes an Italian gesture, “It’s an art, and Leo’s favorite.”

“Decent gesture of apology.” Lena watches Lori put ingredients into a small saucepan in a flowing movement, “Wait, do you piss Leo off often?”

Lori pauses her stir, looking at her mom with an offended expression, “Of course not! It’s also my favorite, and Jeju’s,” backing to the tedious process, she says incredibly, “You don’t really like it though, you think it’s too thick.”

“Hmm, sounds like a presupposition to me,” Lena tilts her head, “I can’t make a conclusion without concrete practice, so I’d like one too.”

Lori lets out a hearty burst of laughter, “Sure.” After adding the rest milk into the saucepan, she leans towards Lena and says in a conspiratorial tone, “But like later, this is for Leo only to make him feel special.”

“What a low strategy.”

“Which would work brilliantly,” Lori makes a grimace shamelessly.

Lena rolls her eyes.

Lori pours the brown thick liquid into a mug and piles up five marshmallows, then grinds some chocolate atop.

The doorbell rings at this time.

Lori inhales nervously, “Right on time.”

“I’ll go get it, you keep wrapping up your art,” Lena says.

Lena invites Kara and Leo in after opening the door. “Lori is waiting for you in the kitchen,” she says to Leo when passing through the passage.

Leo grins, “I see, is she making me hot chocolate? She’s forgiven then.”

Surprised by Leo’s accurate prediction, Lena says, “How do you know?”

“Well, let’s say she tends to make an apology with food, which I would take advantage of to earn myself a treat occasionally, but don’t tell her that,” Leo says with a wink.

Lena comments, “You are not that sweet and vanilla after all.”

“I learned this move from Jeju.”

Kara says, “Keep me out of it,” holding up her index finger, “But I don’t oppose the idea that treating yourself to food.”

Leo deadpans, “Jeju, you basically wouldn’t oppose any idea that relates to food.” Then he catches a secret smile flitting between his two moms, which he finds ironic, _Their chemistry is off the chart, anyone with discerning eyes can easily see it, except themselves._

Lena sees Lori waiting with the mug in her hands after they reach the living room, so she says, “I guess you two have a lot to say to each other,” looking at Kara, “Me and Kara will go to my bedroom and leave you to it?”

“Sure,” Kara agrees, glaring at the siblings, “Don’t come to us before you sort it out.” Then she gestures for Lena to lead the way without sparing them a glance.

Standing in her bedroom, Lena says, “How is Leo taking this?”

“Pretty good, he is really something,” Kara says, “How about Lori?”

“Not gracefully, I would say, I’ve made her cry.”

“Lena—”

“Don’t look at me like that, parenting is hard,” Lena quotes Alex’s words, “Harder than creating tachyons.”

Kara ducks her head and chuckles.

Lena continues, “To tell the truth, I kind of envy they having what they have, their love for each other sticks out a mile.”

“You have me.”

Lena can’t tell Kara’s words are a promise or a statement of fact, but she can tell that she wants to test it out, to hold onto it.

“Do you wanna stay the night?”

“Do you want me to stay?”

They ask at the same time.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Then they respond at the same time.

Kara says hastily, “Only to keep an eye on you, doctor’s order.” Thinking of the doctor’s order, she adds, “The doctor said you should rest more, so you’d better take at least two days off, and I’ll be here for you if you want.” 

Being in a familiar and private setting, Lena finds every fiber in her being is screaming YES, so she says, “Well, luckily, I’m well acquainted with your boss, I can pull some strings to have you take some time off too.”

“Mom, that’s nepotism,” Leo’s voice sounds at the bedroom door.

“As far as I know, the sequelae of a concussion can be anywhere from minor to significant, so Jeju, you’d better keep a very close eye on Mom,” Lori says.

Leo looks at Lori and asks, “Like share-one-bed-close?”

“Of course,” Lori rounds her arm around Leo’s torso, “Hugging-close is better.”

Leo hugs his sister back, “The best.”

Watching the siblings sing the duet, Kara is bewildered, _How long have they been eavesdropping on our conversation?_

Lena reacts quickly, “Why can’t one of you be share-one-bed-close with me?”

Leo says, “Mom, I love you, but it’s a little inappropriate for me to share a bed with you. And Lori? She snores, so Jeju is your best choice.”

Detaching herself from Leo’s embrace, Lori protest, “Hey! I don’t sno-” her sentence is intercepted by a jab from Leo, which knocks a realization to her, “Yeah—I do snore, like a lot,” she corrects herself in haste.

Leo hums contently, “How about we stop disturbing Mom and Jeju and leave them to rest?”

Lori agrees, “That's exactly what I am thinking,” looking at her moms, she says delightfully, “Good night.” Then she pulls Leo away.

 _The accommodation has been settled without consulting me?_ Lena thinks. “We should consider whether to have kids more seriously,” she says to Kara, knowing Lori would hear her properly.

“Do you know what’s even better than hugging-close?” Lori’s voice sounds from the passage.

“What?” Leo echoes.

“Kissing-close!”

Lena murmurs with a smile, “Assholes.” Looking at Kara whose face is tinted with pink, she gestures to the bathroom, “How about you go get ready for bed first, I’ll get my old hoodie and sweatpants for you.”

“Oh-Okay,” Kara stutters, looking forward to the night inwardly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, please feel free to leave your comments!


	10. the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh Lori, poor Lori

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about this belated update, my motivation ran away (legitimately)

Lying on her king-size bed with Kara by her side, Lena stares at the ceiling absentmindedly for her mind is still whirling from what happened in the kitchen earlier. Both of them stay in awkward silence.

Lena doesn’t see Kara in the bedroom as she expected after coming out from her shower, so she walks out of the bedroom to check out what Kara is doing (to retrieve Kara actually). Unsurprisingly, she finds that the supposed guardian is in the kitchen with Lori and almost sticks her nose into a mug that is held with her both hands.

Lena stops at the kitchen island and says, “Kara, slow down before you choke yourself.”

“Mom!” Lori beams and hands Lena a mug, “Here’s the hot chocolate you ordered earlier,” putting a hand beside the corner of her mouth, she says furtively, “Jeju almost cried when I told her there weren’t enough ingredients to make her one because Leo asked me to make him another one before he went to bed, so I had to spare her a small portion out of your cup.”

Kara defends herself at once, “Hey! I didn’t cry!”

Lori says, “That’s why I said almost.”

Kara frowns a little while putting her mug on the countertop, not merely because she can’t find a potent retort, also because her mug is empty now due to her frantic inhalation (in her defense, Lori only poured her a sip of hot chocolate by her standard).

“Thank you.” Lena laughs heartily and takes the mug. Looking at Lori challengingly, she says, “If I do recall correctly, there are more than enough ingredients in the fridge.”

Kara inhales visibly, “I can’t believe you lied to me, you’re such a meanie.”

Lori snorts with laughter. Looking at Lena, she says, “I wouldn’t miss poking fun at the young Jeju for the world, plus,” gesturing at the mug in Lena’s hand, “That will end up in Jeju’s stomach eventually, I was just looking out for Jeju in case she gets a sugar rush.” Clearly, her true intention is tricking them into sharing the same mug.

Holding up her index finger smugly, Kara says, “FYI, I would never get a sugar rush.” Apparently, Kara ignored the bread crumbs Lori dropped.

Lori rolls her eyes at her Jeju, of course she knows that Kryptonian won’t get a sugar rush on earth thanks to their super metabolism, but she miscalculated how oblivious and insensitive her Jeju could be when it comes to romantic relationship. In order to promote the development of the plot as she planned, she rests her last hope on Lena. So she makes a _please_ gesture at Lena, “Anyway, Mom, go ahead and test out my hot chocolate.”

Lena takes a sip. Wrinkling her nose, she says, “Okay, your theory is confirmed, the texture is too thick for me.”

Looking at Lena like she said something blasphemous, Kara makes air quotes with her fingers, “That thick hot chocolate was the best drink I’ve ever had, I respect Lori a lot for that alone.”

Lena hands Kara the mug in her hand and says, “Why don’t you show Lori your respect by finishing this cup for me then?”

Kara smiles and takes the mug, “With pleasure.”

Lena smiles back at Kara softly.

Lori watches her two moms gaze at each other affectionately, she immediately realizes that it’s her cue to evacuate the scene. So she clears her throat, “It’s quite late, I’d better go to bed now, so I guess… good night?”

“Good night,” Lena says without her eyes leaving Kara.

Kara’s response is worse, she only lets out an _I heard you_ hum for her mouth is occupied with the respectful content.

Luckily, Lori is used to her moms’ neglect when they get lost in the moment, she walks away with her feelings intact.

Amused by the exaggerating sound of admiration Kara lets out continually, Lena’s smile widens spontaneously. She finds the sight so cute that she almost wants to snap a photo of it. With her eyes tracing Kara’s face, she notices that Kara’s eyes seem more limpid somehow. It took her a while to realize that this is the first time she sees Kara without glasses, without disguise, this is the first time Kara shows herself unreservedly in front of her. This realization arouses a new feeling in her chest, which is a little strange but familiar, also a little thrilling but safe.

Kara pauses and asks sheepishly, “Am I being too loud?” She is totally unaware of the chocolate smudge painted on the tip of her nose.

“No,” Lena chuckles, “You’re just being adorable.”

Kara grins. “Alex used to hate me for making noise while eating, so I had to threaten her that I would burn out her eyebrows with my heat vision if she continued to complain,” tilting her head, she jokes, “I guess you saved me the trouble of threatening you.”

Lena crosses her arms, “Don’t push your luck, just for you know, Lex left some Kryptonite in a lab of L-Corp, maybe now is a good time to bring them into the light?”

Kara pouts, “You couldn’t bear to hurt me, right?”

“Try me.”

Kara puts down the mug to raises her both hands to surrender, “Okay, threat taken.”

“Good to know.”

Kara bursts into laughter.

Lena laughs along. With revealing the last secret she kept from the Super, Lena feels like the burden on her shoulders has been lifted away. But still, she wants to set the record straight about Kryptonite, so she says seriously, “Kara, I really mean it when I said Lex left some Kryptonite in the lab, and he also left an unfinished formula of Kryptonite in one of his journals, I can turn over all of them to DEO if you want, I just want you to know that I will never hurt you.”

Kara steps closer and says genuinely, “I know that, Lena, I trust you, with all my heart.”

Lena melts. It feels good to be completely honest with Kara, but Kara’s reaction to the knowledge that she possesses the only lethal substance that can kill Kryptonian makes her feels better, mostly the trust of it all, she loves the blonde more and more by the day. Wanting to wipe the smudge off Kara’s nose, she steps closer too, her robe touches the front of Kara’s hoodie.

Kara, however, doesn’t know Lena’s intention, is totally overwhelmed by Lena’s sudden proximity that brings along the fragrant scent of her shampoo, which is so intoxicating and intimate. She leans back slightly, “Lena…”

“Don’t move,” Lena puts a hand on Kara’s shoulder to keep her still, and reaches her other hand to Kara’s nose, “You got something on your nose.”

Frozen at the new sensation, Kara doesn’t know laying her eyes at where is considered appropriate so she lands her eyes on Lena’s face. Slowly flicking her eyes down, she admires, Lena’s eyelashes flutter beautifully with the blink of her eyes, her nose is so delicate like it was elaborately carved, and her lips, oh God, her lips look so soft without lipstick on, her neck is so slender—

“Done.” Lena shows her thumb to Kara with a charming smile, “See? Rudolf the chocolate-nosed reindeer.”

With Lena’s breath puffing through her face, Kara’s brain shuts down, she automatically reaches out a hand and rests it on the back of Lena's waist. “Can I kiss you?” she hears herself asking.

Lena’s pupils dilate. She only hesitates for a second before answering by tiptoeing a little to smash their lips together. She cups Kara’s cheek with one hand and runs the hand that still rests on Kara’s shoulder along Kara’s neck and stops at her jawline, she pulls the blonde towards herself so that she can stand more steadily on her feet again.

The kiss starts off passionate.

Kara follows Lena’s guide and leans in without breaking the kiss, all she can think of right now is that Lena’s lips feel softer than they look. She wraps her arms around the brunette’s waist to hold her closer and tighter, to never let go.

With their fronts pressing together, Lena deepens their kiss. She brushes Kara’s lower lip lingeringly with her tongue before rushing into Kara’s mouth. Kara meets her eagerly and entangles their tongues together, inviting and probing. She can still taste the chocolate in Kara’s mouth, but she doesn’t care at all, she just wants more. Somehow, Kara seems to telepathize her thought for she feels that Kara is dragging her strong hands all the way down to her the base of her thighs, leaving a heated and concrete trail. She moans into Kara’s mouth at the sizzling touch, which only drives Kara crazier. Then, the kiss is interrupted by a sudden movement, Lena wraps her arms around Kara’s neck instinctively. Looking down at Kara’s eyes for she is scooped up now, she gulps, “Oh God.”

Cradling Lena securely with her forearms, Kara promises, “I won’t drop you.”

Turned on by Kara’s show of power, Lena leans in and whispers, “I know.” Then she resumes the kiss, but slower this time to fully experience their first kiss. With Kara responding patiently, she can’t help but think that everything about Kara feels so right, so perfect. She slowly reaches into Kara’s collar and traces her fingers along the bulged muscles on Kara’s shoulder, unexpectedly, Kara’s muscles feel so smooth under her fingertips that she doesn’t want to stop—

“Mom, I forgot to ask what you wan—WOW!”

Lori’s exclaim makes both of them pull back and turn to look at the intruder in astonishment.

Three women stare at each other in speechless dismay.

Lena recovers first. She pats Kara’s shoulder and says, “Put me down, please.”

Kara flusters, “Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Lena makes an effort to compose herself with several deep breaths after landing. Looking at Lori, she tries her best to sound casual, “What were you saying?”

Lori inhales deeply to reboot herself before answering, “God, I thought I was in my timeline for a moment,” waving on hand, “Anyway, I was asking what you want for breakfast, but now come to think of it, you need more rest than usual, how about I make you brunch instead?”

Lena agrees, “Sounds great.”

Kara seconds with thumbs up, “Great.”

Rubbing her temple, Lori says, “Okay then, I’ll go back to my room and hypnotize myself to forget what I saw.” Then she disappears into the corner of the passage.

Looking into the void Lori left behind, Kara mumbles, “We definitely should consider having kids more seriously.” Her remark earns herself a bubble of laughter from Lena which lights up her a little, so she prepares to utter another wisecrack to amuse Lena, but is interrupted by Lori’s call-out again.

“Jeju!”

Kara laments, “What now?!”

Lori walks out from the corner and laughs awkwardly. Shuffling her feet nervously, she says, “Given what I ran into, I was wondering that should I go to Aunt Alex’s place, just in case you…” nodding to the side to hint the thing she intends to say, “You know.”

“Mmmmmm—” Kara draws the syllable uncertainly.

Lena restrains her laughter and pulls a straight face, “No, that won’t be necessary, I’d better go to rest now.” Can’t resist the urge to tease Lori, she adds, “Besides, Maggie and Alex might be busy with their… poetry making, so, why don’t you stop being a killjoy and kindly leave them alone.”

Lori deadpans, “Ha, ha, ha, very funny.” After sinking in the reproachful insinuation in the last part of her Mom’s words, she mutters, “Oh.” Jerking her thumb in the direction of her room and stepping back gingerly, she says, “I’ll go back to my room for good, you won’t see me before you wake up, I swear!” Then she slopes off.

After making sure that she hears Lori closing the door, Lena looks at Kara and says, “Bedtime?”

“Yeah, let’s go to sleep you, no, I mean, sleep with you.” Kara groans in frustration at her clumsiness, “Argh! It sounds worse!” looking at Lena apologetically, “You know what I mean.”

“Maybe,” Lena says before swaying her hip to her bedroom.

Dragging back to the present by Kara’s giggle, Lena asks, “What’s so funny?”

Kara turns over on her side to look at Lena, she says with a goofy smile, “Lori is snoring.”

Lena snickers and turns over on her side too. Facing Kara, she suggests, “Can you Super Hear what’s Leo doing?”

Kara feigns shock with throwing back her head, “No, I can’t, that’s violation of privacy.”

Lena squints her eyes, “No, that’s hypocrisy.”

Kara drops into the pillow and muffles, “Okay, you got me.”

Lena smiles and reaches out to brush the loose hair out of Kara’s face.

Kara adjusts her posture and asks tentatively, “Do you wanna talk about… our kiss?”

Lena pauses, “I really wish there was something to talk about.”

“Lena…”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s just…” Lena sighs, “The whole situation is complicated, neither of us will remember the kiss when this is all done, everything will go back to square one, whether we like it or not, so talking about it will only be pointless and painful to me, please don’t make it harder for me,” resuming the movement of her hand, “But I can assure you that the kiss wasn’t a heat of the moment for me, I wanted to do it for quite a long time, believe it or not, I even had a dream about it.”

Kara smiles with a blush.

Lena rests her hand on Kara’s cheek, “Now, I can’t stop thinking about what my life would be with you in it.”

“That’s all I can think about since Leo and Lori got here.”

Lena moves into Kara’s arms and settles her face against Kara’s neck. “I want the hug you promised earlier today,” she murmurs.

Kara wraps her arms around Lena’s shoulder, “Anytime.”

Closing her eyes, Lena says, “God, I’m so tired.”

“Sleep then, I’ll always be at your side.”

Lena hums softly. With the sense of security creeping in, she slowly drifts into sleep.

“Lena?” Kara pats Lena’s shoulder after a while.

“Yes?” Lena is half-asleep, her voice is husky.

“Leo is sleep-talking.”

Lena explodes with laughter. She reaches out to cover Kara’s eyes and says, “Shut up and sleep.”

_ALEX DANVERS’S APARTMENT_

Alex drops herself on the couch with her face down after dragging her heavy body through the living room. She is exhausted, thanks to the time-consuming and tedious paperwork, also because it cost her a lot of energy to control herself not to punch Morgan Edge in the face during the interrogation.

“Babe, it that you?” Maggie’s voice comes from the bathroom.

“Emm-Hmm,” Alex replies feebly.

“How are you? You sound tired.”

“Still alive.”

After walking out of the bathroom to Alex’s side, Maggie squats down and rubs Alex’s back, “Have you eaten?”

“Nah, I’ve been cleaning up the mess.”

“Can I get you anything? Pizza? Beer?”

Alex turns her head to look at her fiancee, “A kiss would be fine.”

“Sure.” Maggie laughs and leans in to peck Alex on the cheek.

“Hey! You’re wearing my favorite shirt again!” Alex protests after sizing Maggie up.

Maggie stands up and walks towards their bed. “If you really want it back, come and get it then,” she says without looking back.

Alex weighs between staying here and going after her favorite shirt.

“Oh, have I mentioned that I’m only wearing your favorite shirt now?”

“Coming!” Alex jumps up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know whether I should change the rating of this fic because of this chapter


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